Famous Five - Red Boards 1974 cut off year?

[pete9012S]

I am currently looking for Five Get Into a Fix Betty Maxey hardbacked version..



1974 Brockhampton, illustrations and cover by Betty Maxey

I noticed on Abe, there is an older red boarded version from Brockhampton Press available from the same year..

Five Get into Fix No 17
Blyton, Enid
Published by Brockhampton Press, Great Britain, 1974
ISBN 10: 0340033630 / ISBN 13: 9780340033630
Used / Hard Cover / Quantity Available: 1
From The Book Escape (Baltimore, MD, U.S.A.)
Bookseller Rating: 4-star rating

What was the cut off year for the publication of the red boarded Five's I wonder? Was it 1974?
I also wonder if the content of these two books produced in the same year was the same in relation to editing,monetary values etc..

My generation (born 1967) definitely lived during an overlap era of the Maxey and Soper Five's..

[Francis]

I certainly was not aware that they were still being published in 1974 - thought they stopped
in the 1960s! Fascinating to know if they were still being published afterwards.

[Katharine]

Same here, I've never seen them in that format. Oh dear, something else for me to try and collect.

[Tony Summerfield]

What was the cut off year for the publication of the red boarded Five's I wonder? Was it 1974?
I also wonder if the content of these two books produced in the same year was the same in relation to editing,monetary values etc..

My generation (born 1967) definitely lived during an overlap era of the Maxey and Soper Five's..

I think I can answer this question - I will certainly have a go! The first hardback edition with Betty Maxey illustrations and cover, with no dustwrapper, came out in 1974. Up to this point all hardback editions had been the red board ones with Eileen Soper illustrations and dustwrappers. Brockhampton didn't want to let any of the series go out of print, so as soon as stock was getting low they reprinted, but each book was treated individually depending on how the stock was.

To give just two examples so as not to bore you! The 2nd Brockhampton impression of Five on a Treasure Island was published in 1969, but clearly stocks were running low so they printed a 3rd impression in 1974. As they knew that they were bringing out the Maxey editions later that year, I imagine this would have been a very small print run just to tide things over. This was not necessary with all the books however. The 3rd and last red Brockhampton impression of Five Go Adventuring Again was printed in 1971 and stocks were obviously sufficiently good not to have to reprint this before the Maxey editions appeared.

Phew! - the amount of boring trivia that I have in my files!!

[pete9012S]

Thanks very much for that information Tony.You explained the reasoning's behind Brockhampton's actions in a clear,understandable way.

Do you or anyone else know why the Knight paper backed Famous Five's (and their even more difficult to find hard backed equivalents)carried both Betty Maxey and Eileen Soper's illustrations?
Is is simply that the earlier versions of the paperbacks carried Eileen Soper's illustrations and the later published Knight paperbacks included Betty Maxey's?

At the time, in the early 1970's, it just seemed to be simply 'the luck of the draw' as to which illustrations your newly purchased book contained!

As you know,I have very seldom seen a Knight 'Five On A Treasure Island' paperback without Eileen Soper's illustrations,(although I have subsequently been able to purchase one).
Is the reason for this that Knight published a very large amount of Eileen Soper illustrated paperbacks in this edition?
Likewise,I have yet to come across the second book in the series in knight paperback illustrated by Betty Maxey.All the versions of Five Go Adventuring Again in Knight paperback I have investigated are also invariably always illustrated by Eileen Soper.

We have said this before,but despite how ubiquitous the Knight paper backed Five's are containing Betty Maxey's work,we still seem to know so little about her!

Surely she must have illustrated other books before,during and indeed after illustrating the Knight paperback and hard backed versions of The Famous Five!


Also,while we are on the subject of the Knight paper backed Famous Five's,I have always wondered why a few have differing covers to the rest ie:











Are these cover reversals deliberate or possibly a mistake? Surely not.



Just a slight change to the tower in the background on this one!




Regards



Pete

[Tony Summerfield]

Interrupting my work for a quick reply at the moment Pete. I think the illustrations were simply a matter of logistics - Eileen Soper had 21 years to illustrate all the books, but Betty Maxey was required to do them in a very short time. Knight wanted to keep the paperbacks in print, and if Maxey illustrations weren't ready, Soper ones had to do. Also I am pretty sure that Betty Maxey didn't do the books in chronological order.

Hopefully there will be something about Betty Maxey in the next Journal as I have recently been contacted by someone who knew Betty and Dale Maxey quite well and he had quite a bit to say about how she illustrated. As a result of this I have had recent discussions with Anita as to whether Betty Maxey was responsible for doing all the coloured covers. It is possible that 'Adventuring Again' and 'Run Away Together' were just stop-gap covers as the proper ones weren't finished and they were done by a different illustrator to the rest of the series. Hodder did quite a bit of picture reversal and I suspect that it was just to try and make the picture and writing more balanced.

[pete9012S]

Thanks for interrupting your work to post that answer Tony. Yes,when you look at it like that you certainly realise what deadlines and time constraints must have been placed on an artist illustrating this new series of Knight paper backed books!

It is thrilling to hear that we may learn more about Betty Maxey in the next journal.I certainly do hope so.Whether your personal preference is for Betty Maxey or Eileen Soper,Betty Maxey has certainly been a great part in the lives of thousands and thousands of devoted Famous Five fans since her work was first featured in Enid's books.

Have you noticed even after all the reprints and various other illustrators that have illustrated the Famous Five it always seems to come down to Eileen or Betty! No other illustrators seem to ever enter the fray or be offered as viable alternatives.

It reminds me of the \Famous Five on television debate: 1970's Famous Five or 1990's!



Anyway that's all for now and thanks again for that super titbit about the prospective contents of the next journal!

Regards

Pete

[Anita Bensoussane]

An interesting discussion. I too had (and still have) the Famous Five books as 1970s Knight paperbacks, some illustrated by Eileen Soper and others illustrated by Betty Maxey.

It is possible that 'Adventuring Again' and 'Run Away Together' were just stop-gap covers as the proper ones weren't finished and they were done by a different illustrator to the rest of the series.

I've never seen full-size versions of those covers, but looking at them I think they might still be by Betty Maxey. The hair, faces, jumpers and stonework look like her style, as does the panelling (what I can see of it) in the first picture. I could be wrong though!

[Francis]

I think that the covers by Betty Maxey show much more of her real talent than the drawings inside which in my opinion seem to lack something in the way of character.

[Katharine]

I'll certainly be looking forward to any article about betty Maxey. I've always said I didn't like her illustrations, but I suppose what I really mean is that I didn't like the way she'd modernised the FF. Not her fault I'm sure, but under instructions from the publishers. Taken purely as drawings in their own right, they are good.

[Lucky Star]

The 70s Knight paperbacks were also my initiation into the famous five. I always preferred the Soper illustrations but those Maxey illustrations that I had as a child do hold a lot of resonance. I imagine this is similar to anyone in that the covers and illustrations we grew up with stay with us and invoke warm and nostalgic feelings.

I would not be bothered however with seeking out those Maxey illustrations that I have not yet seen; other than the nostalgia that I have mentioned I am only interested in Soper's originals.

Thanks for the explanations Tony, that all makes much more sense now.

[Carlotta King]

I completely agree about certain books bringing back nostalgic memories, even though they might not be favourites.
My Famous Five collection consisted of all different books - I had 1987 Knight Betty Maxey ones, 1992 Award Jolyne Knox ones, 1996 Hodder ones with the 90s tv series covers, and have since then bought some of the 1997 Eileen Soper ones too.
The 1987 Betty Maxey ones will always remind me of childhood reading, and a couple of my copies even have coloured-in pictures where I had got my colouring pencils out, and as soon as anyone mentions Five On A Treasure Island or Five On Finniston Farm, the first image that pops into my head are the 80s covers of those two books, with the children leaning on the gate of the farm in their 80s clothes.
However, I do prefer Eileen's illustrations and I love the period styling of the 1997 Soper editions.

[Deej]

I love Eileen Soper's illustrations having grown up with them.

What do people think of the most recent full colour FF editions from Hodder in 2000 for Five Go Off To Camp and Smugglers Top? They're the only two I think were full colour in that collection of books I have.

[Carlotta King]

I haven't actually seen any of the full-colour illustrations, I have the 1997 copies where the cover is the coloured Eileen Soper one but the illustrations inside are black and white. In your copy are the illustrations coloured like the cover? I bet they look lovely!

[Poppy]

I have a few editions of both Famous Five and Secret Seven full colour editions. I think the Secret Seven ones are more striking but the Eileen Soper ones are nice too. Its funny because I prefer Eileen's illustrations when they are black and white to the Secret Seven ones. They certainly brighten up the pages but I do prefer the original none colour pictures. Somehow they allow me to paint my own picture of the story. Looking at them from an artistic angle, however, they are nice to look at.