# The Famous Five

The Famous Five is a series of children's adventure novels and short stories written by English author Enid Blyton. The first book, Five on a Treasure Island, was published in 1942. The novels feature the adventures of a group of young children – Julian, Dick, Anne, George and their dog Timmy.
The vast majority of the stories take place in the children's school holidays. Each time they meet they get caught up in an adventure, often involving criminals or lost treasure. Sometimes the scene is set close to George's family home at Kirrin Cottage, such as the picturesque Kirrin Island, owned by George and her family in Kirrin Bay. George's own home and various other houses the children visit or stay in are hundreds of years old and often contain secret passages or smugglers' tunnels.
In some books the children go camping in the countryside, on a hike or holiday together elsewhere. However, the settings are almost always rural and enable the children to discover the simple joys of cottages, islands, the English and Welsh countryside and sea shores, as well as an outdoor life of picnics, bicycle trips and swimming.
Blyton intended to write only six or eight books in the series, but owing to their high sales and immense commercial success she went on to write twenty-one full-length Famous Five novels, as well as a number of other series in similar style following groups of children discovering crime on holiday. By the end of 1953, more than six million copies had been sold. Today, more than two million copies of the books are sold each year, making them one of the best-selling series for children ever written, with sales totalling over a hundred million. All the novels have been adapted for television, and several have been adapted as films in various countries.
Blyton's publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, first used the term "The Famous Five" in 1951, after nine books in the series had been published. Before this, the series was referred to as The 'Fives' Books.

## Characters
### The Five

* Julian is the oldest of the five, cousin to George and elder brother to Dick and Anne. He is tall, strong and intelligent as well as caring, responsible and kind. His cleverness and reliability are often noted by Aunt Fanny. He is the leader of the group and is very protective towards Anne and sometimes, to her frustration, towards George. Julian is the most mature of the group but, although well-meaning, his manner can at times come over as overbearing, pompous or priggish. At the start of the series, Julian is 12 years old. Over time, he reaches his goal of fully maturing into a young adult.
* Dick has a cheeky sense of humour, but is also dependable and kind in nature. He is the same age as his cousin George, 1 year younger than his brother Julian and a year older than his sister Anne – eleven at the start of the series. Though inclined to tease his sister at times, Dick is, like Julian, very caring towards Anne and does his best to keep her cheered up when she gets upset. He had a heroic role in Five on a Treasure Island. He uses his wits and saves the five in many adventures but probably has the least clearly-drawn character of the four cousins.
* Anne is the youngest in the group, and generally takes care of the domestic duties during the Five's various camping holidays. As the youngest, she is more likely than the others to be frightened, and does not really enjoy the adventures as much as the others. She is ten years old in the first book of the series. She sometimes lets her tongue run away with her, but ultimately she is as brave and resourceful as the others. She likes doing the domestic things such as planning, organising and preparing meals, and keeping where they are staying clean and tidy, be it a cave, house, tent or caravan. In Smuggler's Top it is suggested she is claustrophobic, as she is frightened of enclosed spaces, which remind her of bad dreams. But the adventures invariably lead the five into tunnels, down wells, and into dungeons and other enclosed spaces, demonstrating how brave she really is.
* George (actually, Georgina) is Julian, Dick and Anne's cousin. She is a tomboy, who demands that people call her George instead of Georgina; she cuts her hair very short and dresses like a boy. She is headstrong and courageous by nature and, like her father, scientist Quentin Kirrin, has a hot and fiery temper. Introduced to the other characters in the first book, she later attends a boarding school with Anne where the teachers also agree to call her 'George'. Blyton eventually revealed that the character was based on herself. It is notable that the chief protagonist of the Malory Towers stories also possessed a fiery temper as a defining character trait. George has a loyal dog named Timmy who would do anything for her. She often gets cross when anyone calls her by her birth name or makes fun of Timmy, and she loves it when somebody calls her George or mistakes her for a boy. In Five Get into a Fix, old Mrs Janes mistakes her for a boy: even though Julian had told her that she was a girl, she later forgets this. George sometimes takes this to the point of asking that her name be prefixed with Master instead of Miss. Various references have been made to what meaning should be read into this – for instance "I remember reading in my first Famous Five book about a girl called Master George. What a puzzle and thrill. She claims to never tell lies as that is cowardly."
* Timothy Alias Timmy is George's faithful dog. He is a large, brown mongrel with a long tail. George adopted him after finding him abandoned on the moors as a puppy. He is very friendly; he is clever, affectionate and loyal to the children and to George in particular; he provides physical protection for them many times. Timmy's presence is frequently given as the reason the children's parents allow them to wander unsupervised. George adores Timmy and thinks that he is the best dog in the world, and often becomes furious when people insult or threaten him. This is shown in 'Five On A Secret Trail' when she runs away from home with Timmy because he was being teased as he was forced to wear a cardboard collar. In the first book of the series, George's parents have forbidden her to keep Timmy, and she is forced to hide him with a fisher boy in the village. After the end of the Five's first adventure, her parents relent and she is allowed to keep him in the house and also take him with her to boarding school. It is a notable feature of the stories that Timmy's thoughts and feelings are frequently described.

### Friends the Five meet

* Alf, the fisherboy, appears in some of the books set in Kirrin Cottage. In the first book, after George's parents forbid her to keep the dog, Alf keeps Timmy for her. Timmy adores Alf. Alf also looks after George's boat. In later books Alf only looks after George's boat, as George's parents let Timmy stay in the house. Alf also appears as James of the same background.
* Jo, the ragamuffin girl, clever but wild, joins the Five on three adventures throughout the series. She is approximately the same age as the children and is a tomboy like George. Her parents were in the circus, but her mother died and her father was imprisoned for theft. She admires Dick and thinks the world of him.
* Joanna/Joan is the housekeeper at George's house. She is an extremely kind woman who is often present at Kirrin Cottage when Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny go off somewhere. All the four cousins are extremely attached to her. Joanna contracts scarlet fever in the last book. She is sometimes referred to as Joan in Blyton's Famous Five short stories like Five Have a Puzzling Time and other stories.
* Tinker appears in two books. He has a habit of imitating cars (which drives his father mad) and has a pet monkey called Mischief. His father is also a scientist who is Uncle Quentin's friend.
* Spiky is a friend of Jo's who works in the circus. The Five meet in him in the fourteenth book in the series, Five Have Plenty of Fun.
* Wilfred meets the Five in the book Five Have a Mystery to Solve. He has an inexplicable ability to attract animals.
* Sooty/Pierre is in the same form as Dick in school. He is known for his hair that holds a resemblance to soot and therefore inherited the name Sooty. He welcomed the five to his home at smugglers top in Five go to smugglers top and aids them in solving the mystery of signallers and smuggling at smugglers top.
* Nobby (Ned in some more recent editions) is part of a troupe of circus folk who travel in caravans. He befriends the five in Five Go Off in a Caravan. He lives a hard life with his uncle known as 'Tiger Dan' and acrobat Lou. He gives the five the idea of a caravaning holiday. The character of Nobby was later renamed "Ned" in some editions from 2010, in an attempt to modernise the text.
* Henry/Henrietta is a member of the riding school that Anne and George visit in Five Go to Mystery Moor. She is well known for having disputes with George as both girls badly want to be a boy and are jealous of each other, although she gets on with the rest of the five.
* Toby is a friend of Julian and Dick's who lets the five stay on his farm near Billycock Hill in Five go to Billycock Hill.He has a cousin called Jeff who is a flight lieutenant at the nearby airfield. He is a bit of a joker as he likes to play tricks.
* Yan likes to follow the five around to their annoyance when they were staying on Tremannon Farm in Cornwall for the holidays in Five Go Down to Sea. He enjoys eating the five's sweets and shows them places in the area such as 'The Wrecker's Way' and the tower.
* Guy and Harry Lordler are met by Anne and George on a hike in Five on a Secret Trail. They are identical twins which confuses the five, who thought that there was only Guy. Guy and Harry are often in conflict with each other and ignore each other. Guy owns a Roman camp as his father is a famous archeologist.
* Henry and Harriet,'The Harries' are children of Mrs Philpot who lets the five stay on Finniston Farm in Five on Finniston Farm. They are often eager to help their mother with chores and are very busy. They hold a grudge against Junior, the irritable American boy featured in the book. They own a dog called Snippet and a crow called Nosy.
* Berta is the daughter of Elbur, a colleague of Uncle Quentin and is featured in Five Have Plenty of Fun. Elbur is threatened with the kidnapping of Berta if Elbur and Uncle Quentin do not reveal project secrets.She consequently stays with the five and has to change her name to 'Lesley' as well as look like a boy to avoid being kidnapped, to the resentment of George. She has a dog called Sally.
* Richard Kent is the son of Thurlow Kent, who is very wealthy and features in the book Five Get Into Trouble. He is known for his cowardly nature for which he is mocked by the five. His father had a body guard named 'Rooky' who Richard resents but is also fears. Rooky tries to hunt down Richard and kidnap him for ransom.

### Grown-ups in the Famous Five

* Aunt Fanny is George's mother, and aunt to Dick, Julian and Anne. She is married to Uncle Quentin, and is, through most of Blyton's Famous Five novels, the principal maternal figure in the lives of the children. She is a very kind and easy-going woman, and shows considerable patience with her husband over his short temper and absent-mindedness.
* Uncle Quentin is George's father, and a world-famous scientist, who is kidnapped or held hostage in several of the children's adventures. He possesses a quick temper and has little tolerance for the children on school holidays, but is nevertheless a loving and caring husband, father and uncle, and is extremely proud of his daughter. He is also inclined to be very absent-minded, as he finds it hard to switch off from his work and readjust to everyday life. Despite his fame as a scientist, his work does not earn him much money. In the first book of the series, it is established that he is brother to the father of Julian, Dick and Anne.
* Julian, Dick and Anne's mother is a very nice woman. In Five Go Off In a Caravan, she persuades the children's father to let them travel in the caravan. She's referred to as Mrs. Barnard in Five Get Into a Fix.

## Critical discussion

Blyton was a nature writer early in her career, and the books are strongly atmospheric, with a detailed but idealised presentation of the rural landscape. The books present children exploring this landscape without parental supervision as natural and normal. Pete Cash of the English Association has noted that the children "are allowed to go off on their own to an extent that today would contravene the Child Protection Act (1999) and interest Social Services."
The books are written in a nostalgic style even for the time they were written, avoiding reference to specific political events or technological developments. Cash noted that the characters do not watch television apart from one appearance in 1947, or even make much use of radios, despite George's father's work presumably involving advanced technology.
The books have been criticised for being repetitive, with repeated use of stock elements such as obnoxious, unfriendly people who turn out to be criminals and the discovery of a secret passageway. Blyton wrote rapidly and could finish a book in a week, which meant that unlike other book series of the period, such as Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys, she was able to maintain control of her creations and write all the stories in a series herself.
The treatment of girls in the books provides a contrast, with Anne, the youngest and most fragile character, a contrast to the brash and headstrong George.

### Floating timeline

The seemingly perpetual youth of the Famous Five, who experience a world of apparently endless holidays while not ageing significantly, is known as a floating timeline. Floating timelines allow for an episodic series with no defined end-point, but at the expense of losing a sense of the characters growing up. J. K. Rowling commented of her Harry Potter series that she deliberately intended to avoid this in her writing: "in book four the hormones are going to kick in – I don't want him stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence like poor Julian in the Famous Five!"