https://www.hilobrow.com/forties-adventure/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;100 BEST ADVENTURES OF THE FORTIES (1944–1953)
This page lists my 100 favorite adventures published during the cultural era known as the Forties (1944–1953, according to HILOBROW’s periodization schema). Although it remains a work in progress, and is subject to change, this BEST ADVENTURES OF THE FORTIES list complements and supersedes the preliminary “Best Forties Adventure” list that I first published, here at HILOBROW, in 2013. I hope that the information and opinions below are helpful to your own reading; please let me know what I’ve overlooked.
— JOSH GLENN (2019)
How many of these books have you read? There's some I definitely want to check out.
Enid Blyton comes in at number three on this list:
3.Enid Blyton’s children’s adventure The Island of Adventure. The prolific English children’s writer Enid Blyton is best remembered for her Famous Five and Secret Seven series; The Island of Adventure is the first in what would become Blyton’s Adventure series. Here, orphaned Jack and Lucy-Ann move in with Philip and Dinah Mannering, who live with their difficult uncle and aunt at their massive but rundown home on the English coast.
Philip and Jack, both in their early teens, are amateur naturalists: the former an animal lover, the latter a birder whose pet cockatoo, Kiki, can repeat a large number of phrases. Dinah and Lucy-Ann, who are younger, are also — like all of Blyton’s female characters — less well-rounded. Strange lights on the mysterious Island of Gloom draw the four into an adventure down a dark well, inside an abandoned copper mine, and through a network of secret undersea tunnels. A mysterious grownup, the balding Bill Smugs, plays an important role in their escapade, as well.
Today, Blyton is rightfully scorned by librarians and others as a peddler of formulaic plots, casual sexism and racism, and jingoistic attitudes towards non-English characters, every single one of whom is untrustworthy; still, along with Arthur Ransome, she helped popularise the idea that unsupervised kids can be resourceful and daring — so let them roam.
Fun facts: The first edition of The Island of Adventure was illustrated by Stuart Tresilian. Blyton reportedly wrote each of her many — over 700! — books in less than a week; in 1944 alone, she also published the Famous Five instalment Five Run Away Together, the Five Finder-Outers instalment The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat, and over 20 other books. The Adventure series were adapted for New Zealand TV in 1996.
Perhaps not the most favourable review I've ever read - still it made it onto the top one hundred!
I can hardly believe there are still commentators "peddling" this kind of so-old-it's-gone-mouldy criticism. And yet, as you say, Pete, it still comes in at number 3 anyway!!
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