The Enid Blyton Society

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
However, the three illustrations accompanying the passage from The Circus of Adventure appear to have been specially painted for The Big Enid Blyton Book, and they're lovely. All three depict the drama of the escaped circus bears, and the colour/tinting is soft and flowing. A really attractive set of illustrations.

Hmm I have the 1976 edition of The Big Enid Blyton Book and it only seems to have TWO pictures accompanying the Circus of Adventure segment. Both are lovely however. Stuart Tresilian is my all time favourite Blyton illustrator.

Robert Houghton wrote:I also have a copy of the very similar book, 'My Favourite Enid Blyton Book' (published 1964) which has similar content to 'My Big Enid Blyton Book' and the excerpt from 'Mountain' is included. I actually quite like the coloured version of the illustrations in 'Mountain' more than those in 'Circus'.

My Favourite Enid Blyton Book contains a selection of items from My Big Enid Blyton Book. The colouring and tinting on the pictures from The Mountain of Adventure doesn't look as natural to me, which is why I prefer the specially commissioned artwork accompanying the extract from The Circus of Adventure.

Lucky Star wrote:

Anita Bensoussane wrote:...the three illustrations accompanying the passage from The Circus of Adventure appear to have been specially painted for The Big Enid Blyton Book, and they're lovely. All three depict the drama of the escaped circus bears, and the colour/tinting is soft and flowing. A really attractive set of illustrations.

Hmm I have the 1976 edition of The Big Enid Blyton Book and it only seems to have TWO pictures accompanying the Circus of Adventure segment. Both are lovely however.

The 1961 edition of The Big Enid Blyton Book has a third picture in shades of brown. It shows Madame Fifi thrusting a flaring torch into the ground near the broken bars of the bears' cage, to prevent a third bear escaping.

Anita Bensoussane wrote: I think most of the illustrations in The Big Enid Blyton Book were taken from the original books (and coloured in or tinted if they didn't already have colour or tinting), so only a few would be completely new. If you ever consider buying a copy of The Big Enid Blyton Book, look out for an early edition as the 1976 edition was heavily abridged.

Good tip! I will look for the older version.

Anita Bensoussane wrote: The 1961 edition of The Big Enid Blyton Book has a third picture in shades of brown. It shows Madame Fifi thrusting a flaring torch into the ground near the broken bars of the bears' cage, to prevent a third bear escaping.

Thanks Anita. The updating and abridging of books does drive me mad.

I've only just remembered that three of Stuart Tresilian's Malory Towers illustrations from The Big Enid Blyton Book can be seen on the website, though they're not as big as the originals. One is on the Malory Towers button (on the Home Page of the website), showing girls gathered around the notice board. If you click on the Malory Towers button you can see two more - one of Zerelda having her hair plaited, and one of Zerelda throwing a book at a fourth-former. They're interesting, though I prefer the ones Tresilian did for the extract from The Circus of Adventure.

I hadn't realised that they were Tresilian. I rarely look at the Malory Towers section. Thanks for pointing them out Anita. Truly this website is full of marvels.

Just posted this post below in "Greetings from Sussex", but worry that it might not be noticed by the experts.
So I hope it's alright if I revive this old threat?

I remember "The Jungle of Adventure" on the Blyton yahoo Group. That was a Round Robin ca. 2009 (?).
Then there is "The Romance of Adventure", "The Aeroplane of Adventure", "The Marsh of Adventure", "The Harbour of Adventure", "The Ruin of Adventure", "The Lake of Adventure", "The Canyons of Adventure" and last, but not the least "Hide and Seek" in enidblyton.net.

Two questions:
1. I would be very interested to find out if there are a few more Adventure series continuation stories which I might have missed.
2. And what is the chronological order of these continuation stories?

I realize that I might have asked this before, but forgot to print out the answer.

Hi Chrissie, where do I find "The Romance of Adventure"?

I don't think that there is an order to all these storys, but if someone has one, I would like to know it as well. I would say, that "Christmas" is probably the first but as for the rest I don't think it matters. As far as I remember they are all after "River" but there doesn't seem to be any order.

There are at least two storys out there where you have the Famous Five as well as the Adventure-Kids in it. The first one you can find on the thread "Games", called "A famous Five Adventure" if I remember correctly. For the next you will have to pm Daisy.

Dinah Cunningham wrote:Hi Chrissie, where do I find "The Romance of Adventure"?

Dinah, I've just sent it to your e-mail address. Did you get it?

Yes, I did, thanks!

Good!

Chrissie - thanks for mentioning my "Hide and Seek" story as part of the continuation series. This was in fact part of 4 continuation stories which imagined the characters of the Adventure series and the Barney series meeting in their early twenties through the relationship of Snubby Lynton and Lucy-Ann Trent. The four episodes, Return to Rubadub, Andra's Legacy, Hide & Seek and Rockingdown Revisited are all on enidblyton.net still in the fanfic section (although in reverse order!).

Hi Sally,

Do you still remember André and me from the Spade Oak meeting on May 18th 2014?
We were sitting next to Francis.

Thanks for the update.
So is this the chronological order of the 4 stories?
1. Return to Rubadub
2. Andra's Legacy (related to "The Ship of Adventure"?)
3. Rockingdown Revisited
4. Hide & Seek

Chrissie - not quite:

Return to Rubadub
Andrea's Legacy
Hide & Seek
Rockingdown Revisited.

They are listed on enidblyton.net in the fanfic section in reverse order.