The Mystery Of The Hidden House

[pete9012S]

A good book this. One I can enjoy reading time and time again. After all these years I've only just noticed how gruesome those spikes on the wall really are!





Yes, even the illustration of the spikes in the first edition look pretty formidable!

Anyone like Fatty's colourful combo? Even Michael Portillo might think twice before donning Fatty's clothes!



Or perhaps not!!

[Eddie Muir]

A very interesting post, Pete.

[Rob Houghton]

I'll have to give this book another try! I usually class it as one of my least-favourite FFO books.

I agree about Fatty's clothes though!

[Debbie]

Looking at how Fatty's sitting and where the spikes will be, he must have been pretty confident that they wouldn't go through the sacking.

[pete9012S]

Yes, unless they were a fairly old pair of trousers and he didn't mind if they got snagged or torn around the Bob Crotchet area...

On a serious note, did anyone remember that the book says:

On each side of the posts stretched high walls, set with glass spikes at the top.

Joseph Abbey (who also has his own knockers) seems to have tried to depict the spikes like glass...

[Rob Houghton]

I'd forgotten that the spikes were made of glass. I think when I first read the book years ago I presumed they were just bits of broken glass, embedded into the cement etc.

As you know, I generally don't like J Abbey much but that illustration by J Abbey is one of my favourite J Abbey illustrations - one of his best. I also like this J Abbey illustration from Pantomime Cat -



When he was good, he was very good! By contrast, the illustration by J Abbey of the boys climbing over the wall is pretty dire! The middle figure (Larry?) is so elongated, he must be about 7 feet tall!!

[pete9012S]

Wow, yes. It looks like he hardly needs the ladder of rope at all!

[Rob Houghton]

Lol - even before you narrowed the picture, Pete!!

[pete9012S]

This is the book (the sixth in the series) that Ern, and also we ourselves get our delectable introduction to Fatty's Shed:

‘He arrived at the bottom of Fatty’s garden and heard voices in the shed there. It was Fatty’s work-room and play-room. He had made it very comfortable indeed. On this cold winter’s day he had an oil-stove burning brightly and the inside of the shed was warm and cosy. A tiger-skin was on the floor, old and moth-eaten, but looking very grand, and a crocodile skin was stretched along one side of the shed-wall. The Five Find-Outers were trying to roast chestnuts on top of the oil-stove. They had a tin of condensed milk and were each having a dip in it with a spoon as they talked.’

Oh, and what do you think of Charles Stewart's 1963 glass spikes??

[Rob Houghton]

NOT very spiky!

I do like his illustrations though.

When I was a child I always thought having a crocodile skin on your shed wall would be a bit - as they would say these days - 'gross'!

[pete9012S]

Yes!


Anyone got this 2009 version?
https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/boo ... dden+House" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Fatty does not come out too well in the silhouettes at the top of the chapter pages!!

[pete9012S]

The front cover.

Let's now take a close look at Peter Archer's rear:



Spot any glass spikes??

[Daisy]

Spot any walls??

[pete9012S]

Mary Gernat's 1966 take on the glass spikes. I don't know about you, but I think she has done a rather good job?

[Rob Houghton]

I always liked Mary Gernat's illustrations - spikes or no spikes! I particularly like her take on Fatty. I've always thought she made him look a bit like Alfred Hitchcock or maybe Charles Laughton!!