Five Find-Outers Short Stories?

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Five Find-Outers Short Stories?

Post by Poppy »

I've just finished the Monthly Quiz on the Society and came across a question on how many short five find outer's stories did enid blyton write. Obviously I didn't know (I never even heard of them) Is there such thing? I can't find them on amazon or ebay or even in the cave of books. Does anyone know about them- do they really exist? :?:
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by MJE »

     Two exist that I know of - and if there are more, I, too, would be glad to be told of them.
     This is what I wrote about them on my Blyton web page:

Code: Select all

  --  Just a Spot of Bother!                   1957  short story
                1957: Original appearance unknown
                1999: Republished in Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury (1999)
[..]
  --  The Five Find-Outers and Dog 
           Tackle the Mystery Sneak Thief      1962  short story
                1962: Original appearance unknown
                1999: Republished in Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury (1999)
     So your best bet for getting both these stories is to buy "Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury". I don't know if it's still in print or not, though.

Regards, Michael.
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by shadow »

Looking in the cave gives the following information.

Just a Spot of Bother! {Find-Outers] {ill. uncredited}
from Chucklers' Annual (Chucklers' Weekly 1957)
Just a Spot of Bother! {Find-Outers}
from The Big Enid Blyton Book (Paul Hamlyn 1961)
Just a Spot of Bother!
from My Favourite Enid Blyton Story Book (Golden Pleasure Books 1964)
Just a Spot of Bother! {Find-Outers}
from Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury (Hodder Children's Books 1999)

and

The Five Find-Outers - and Dog Tackle the Mystery Sneak Thief {ill. Derek C. Eyles}
from June Book 1962 (Fleetway Publications 1961)
The Five Find-Outers and Dog Tackle the Mystery Sneak Thief
from Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury (Hodder Children's Books 1999)

The only way to get both stories together is to get the Adventure Treasury (1999). I don't think it is available new anymore but there's always a few very reasonable copies on ebay. I have the Adventure Treasury and it's a lovely book with a lot of colour pictures.

I also have Just a Spot of Bother in The Big Enid Blyton Book and comparing them both The Adventure Treasury has fewer colour pictures but as the Adventure Treasury has both stories and is much cheaper, that is probably the best option. Also if you were to buy The Big Enid Blyton book be sure to get the 1961 first edition with 245 pages. Later editions don't have the Find Outers story.
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by Fiona1986 »

From the cave:

Just a Spot of Bother! {Find-Outers] {ill. uncredited}
from Chucklers' Annual (Chucklers' Weekly 1957)
Just a Spot of Bother! {Find-Outers}
from The Big Enid Blyton Book (Paul Hamlyn 1961)
Just a Spot of Bother!
from My Favourite Enid Blyton Story Book (Golden Pleasure Books 1964)
Just a Spot of Bother! {Find-Outers}
from Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury (Hodder Children's Books 1999)

and

The Five Find-Outers - and Dog Tackle the Mystery Sneak Thief {ill. Derek C. Eyles}
from June Book 1962 (Fleetway Publications 1961)
The Five Find-Outers and Dog Tackle the Mystery Sneak Thief
from Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury (Hodder Children's Books 1999)
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by pete9012S »

Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury 1999 is a lovely book containing the two Find Outers stories stories mentioned and possibly many more other various stories you will enjoy reading too.
It's very reasonably priced on ebay for such a great book. :D

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksi ... &_from=R40" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by MJE »

pete9012S wrote:Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury 1999 is a lovely book containing the two Find Outers stories stories mentioned and possibly many more other various stories you will enjoy reading too.
     It includes (rather uselessly, I think) longish excerpts from a number of novels (useless, because a portion of a novel included in a collection like this surely can't give any sense of completeness); but it includes a number of short stories completists will probably want to have. There are those two Find-Outers stories, which were probably the main ones that interested me; and a couple of stories featuring a boy detective called John Hollins - very rare stories, seemingly - I don't know how many stories there are in total featuring this characters - and a few other short stories featuring other characters. I personally think the adventure format fits the novel form better than the short-story form, so some of these stories do strike me as rather tame compared to the novels. Still, they are interesting to read. I seem to remember "Smuggler Ben" is there, complete, for those who don't already have it. Not a bad story, although my favourite of the Mary Pollock titles is "The Secret of Cliff Castle".
     The illustrations are plentiful and lavish, which is another point of interest. But I'm not sure if they are always the ones that originally appeared with the stories on their first publication.

Regards, Michael.
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

MJE wrote:
pete9012S wrote:Enid Blyton's Adventure Treasury 1999 is a lovely book...
     It includes (rather uselessly, I think) longish excerpts from a number of novels (useless, because a portion of a novel included in a collection like this surely can't give any sense of completeness); but it includes a number of short stories completists will probably want to have.
The excerpts may serve a function in introducing young readers to books and series they haven't yet encountered. When I was about eight and my sister seven, we were given a copy of The Big Enid Blyton Book (Hamlyn) which also contained excerpts from Blyton novels as well as short stories, poems, puzzles, etc. We had already read a lot of Enid Blyton but hadn't yet tried the Adventure, Secret or Barney series or The Six Bad Boys. Reading The Big Enid Blyton Book made me determined to track them down. I hadn't realised either until I read that book that Enid Blyton had written so much about nature or retold Bible stories, and I hadn't come across Bom or Uncle Nat before.
MJE wrote:There are those two Find-Outers stories, which were probably the main ones that interested me; and a couple of stories featuring a boy detective called John Hollins - very rare stories, seemingly - I don't know how many stories there are in total featuring this character...
It looks as though there are three John Hollins stories - 'Number Sixty-Two', 'The Case of the Five Dogs' and 'The Mystery of Melling Cottage':

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/sear ... ch=hollins" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Five Find-Outers Short Stories?

Post by Julie2owlsdene »

The John Hollins stories are very good. As is the whole of the Adventure Treasury. :)

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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by Wolfgang »

Anita Bensoussane wrote: I hadn't realised either until I read that book that Enid Blyton had written so much about nature or retold Bible stories, and I hadn't come across Bom or Uncle Nat before.
It's quite strange that one of Blyton's hero is a deserteur: Bom the little drummer. When we think of all the times when a member of the military was subject of worshipping or despised as deseteur ("Five go to Billycock Hill", "Well, my Father says", "The mystery of Melling Cottage"), Blyton seems to have changed her mind. Or was it just a carefree decision of her to use such a setting? I also wonder when people started to negatively critisize Blyton heavily about her work?
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by MJE »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
MJE wrote:     It includes (rather uselessly, I think) longish excerpts from a number of novels (useless, because a portion of a novel included in a collection like this surely can't give any sense of completeness);[...]
The excerpts may serve a function in introducing young readers to books and series they haven't yet encountered.
     I guess so - I probably did sound a bit sour there. But that does sort of reduce that aspect of the book to advertising (of a sort) for something bigger than the book itself. I guess *I*, at least, don't buy books for that reason.
Anita Bensoussane wrote:It looks as though there are three John Hollins stories - 'Number Sixty-Two', 'The Case of the Five Dogs' and 'The Mystery of Melling Cottage':

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/sear ... ch=hollins" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
     I have all three of those, then - I seem to recall two are in the "Treasury", but I also have two of them (one duplicated) in some other collection - I forget which one - it's mentioned on my Blyton web page.
     There is also a fourth possible candidate, too: a short story rather in the same style whose central character is John, but the surname Hollins is not mentioned. I think it is mentioned, though, that John is a detective (as is mentioned with John Hollins), so I regard that, too, as probably being part of this mini-series. (I don't recall the details now, but that also is discussed briefly on my web page, with titles, collection names, and the like.)

Regards, Michael.
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Wolfgang wrote:It's quite strange that one of Blyton's hero is a deserteur: Bom the little drummer.
I must admit I've only ever read the one Bom story (in The Big Enid Blyton Book) and I'd never stopped to think about Bom's circumstances or background.
MJE wrote:
Anita Bensoussane wrote:It looks as though there are three John Hollins stories - 'Number Sixty-Two', 'The Case of the Five Dogs' and 'The Mystery of Melling Cottage'
There is also a fourth possible candidate, too: a short story rather in the same style whose central character is John, but the surname Hollins is not mentioned. I think it is mentioned, though, that John is a detective (as is mentioned with John Hollins), so I regard that, too, as probably being part of this mini-series. (I don't recall the details now, but that also is discussed briefly on my web page, with titles, collection names, and the like.)
The story discussed on your web page is 'Adventure Up a Tree', first published in 1950. As the other three stories were published earlier (1947) and the John in 'Adventure Up a Tree' doesn't appear to have done any detecting before, I doubt it's meant to be the same John even though it's a similar kind of story.
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Re: Five Find-Outers Short Stories?

Post by Poppy »

Thanks for your help everyone! :D
I'll be sure to get my hands on those FFO stories soon!
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Re: Five Five outers Short Stories?

Post by MJE »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:The story discussed on your web page is 'Adventure Up a Tree', first published in 1950. As the other three stories were published earlier (1947) and the John in 'Adventure Up a Tree' doesn't appear to have done any detecting before, I doubt it's meant to be the same John even though it's a similar kind of story.
     That is a good point, Anita, and it hadn't occurred to me. I should make a mention of that - if I can update my page somehow. (I can't even reach my web site at present - to change things on it, that is - and I have no idea how to do it now, as things have changed since I last did so. I won't bore you with the details.) Do you mind if I mention that, Anita, seeing it was your idea? Shall I mention you by name to credit you with the idea? I normally do that if I mention an idea someone else told me, unless they don't want me to.

Regards, Michael.
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Re: Five Find-Outers Short Stories?

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

I'm happy for you to mention my name if you like. I hope you manage to get back into your website!
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Re: Five Find-Outers Short Stories?

Post by Nair Snehalatha »

I would dearly love to read Five Outers Short stories--- . Talking about short stories there is the Mystery Stories ''--two books in one-- The Secret Of Cliff Castle and Smugger Ben . It was first published in the U. K. in hardback edition by William Collins Sons & Co.Ltd.The illustrations look more Rene Clokish. Then there is A Night On Thunder Rock---with many other adventure stories. The Mystery Of Melling Cottage is in this book.----originally published in Enid Blyton's Treasury--copyright Darrel Waters 1947.Another of the short stories is ''The Adventure Of The Secret Necklace''.It's a Sparrow book --illustrated by Joyce Smith and David Dowland---not well illustrated at all.But the story is fantabulous. :)
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