Five Get Into Trouble

[nicola]

Hi everyone from a warm Cape Town!
I have recently bought five get into trouble, a second impression,March 1950.
The last title on the inside rear flap is the tile of the book.
I have now bought the first edition and the last title on the flap is identical.
Do I have two first edition dustcovers?
They both look identical!
Can somebody help?

[Tony Summerfield]

Hi Nicola, welcome to the forums! If you are who I think you are, you used to belong to the Society and if I am reading it correctly you would have had Journals 28 to 30. In Journal 28 there was an article by Gordon Lupson which went into minute details of dustwrappers in various different editions of Five Get Into Trouble - it is all quite complicated so before I try repeating it perhaps you could let me know if you have a copy of Journal 28.

Best wishes
Tony

[nicola]

Hi Tony,
Many thanks for the advice!
I do still have no. 28 and it now all makes sense,if somewhat complicated!
At least I know that my first edition has the correct cover(with the FIVE on the rear panel in capitals)

[pete9012S]

I found this book very tense and quite scary when I first read it aged about nine or ten.
Being trapped behind those gates and the brutish villains in this book gave quite a creepy feeling of anxiety when read under the bedclothes.

I thought blackening the hair was a supreme idea and was so dismayed when the Five almost got to leave.
The kindness showed to Aggie was heart-warming and what a specimen of cruelty Hunchy was.

Richard showed that he did indeed possess valour, spunk and courage at the end of the adventure and this experience he shared with The Famous Five no doubt shaped him into a much better chap than he otherwise would have been.

I loved the fact that although Richard came from a moneyed family, the Five were more concerned about his qualities as a person than the cash his family had in the bank.



I always thought the Five should at least have tried to climb the gates - perhaps they were too daunting though for even someone with the climbing prowess of George..


Those gates looked climbable to my ten year old eyes...


This illustration made the gates look a lot harder to climb..

Maxey Illustrations:
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[Lucky Star]

The walls don't look that high either. Especially as there are trees nearby to clamber up onto. I suppose such an easy escape would have ruined the plot though. I also found tis to be a tense and exciting entry to the series. I loved Owl's Dene and it's atmosphere. The supporting characters and the villains are very well drawn and Enid fills out their various relationships very skillfully. A great book.

The original Soper cover is very evocative. The second Soper cover slightly less so. I grew up with the excellent Maxey cover depicting Anne wheeling her bike while the others peer through the gates. The 78 TV series cover is good but appears to show the Five in a derelict building. The window pane beside them is broken and the room appears to be an empty wreck.

[pete9012S]

I agree about the cover John, then I suddenly remembered this:

Five Get Into Trouble - The cover shows a scene from Five on a Hike Together (Two Trees)

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/for ... =19&t=8673" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[John Pickup]

The original Soper cover illustration is my favourite of the whole series and is the one I have with the white spine.
Trouble has always been in my top five FF books. It's a tense, tightly-plotted read and Rooky, Hunchy and Mr Perton are typical nasty villains. As a child I was fascinated by the black Bentley and I knew the number plate off by heart, KMF 102.

[Judith Crabb]

From the driest state in the driest continent on earth am listening to rain. Wonderful.
'Five get into Trouble' was one of my favourites and I almost missed out reading it. The trouble was the 'trouble' in the title. For me as a child getting into trouble did not mean getting into difficulties. Trouble meant getting cornered by parent or teacher (or heaven forbid policeman) and getting told off good and proper and possibly whacked. The thought of the adored Famous Five being subjected to such ignominy was too much for me, but finally having read many times all the other Five titles that had been published to that date - 1958 I gave in and of course learned a new meaning for 'getting in to trouble'.

[Aussie Sue]

From the driest state in the driest continent on earth am listening to rain. Wonderful.
.

My garden is happily soaking up that rain too Judith.

[Judith Crabb]

It didn't last very long, Sue, did it? Better than nothing I suppose. My suburb is in a rain shadow, so sometimes other parts do rather better.

[Katharine]

'Five get into Trouble' was one of my favourites and I almost missed out reading it. The trouble was the 'trouble' in the title. For me as a child getting into trouble did not mean getting into difficulties. Trouble meant getting cornered by parent or teacher (or heaven forbid policeman) and getting told off good and proper and possibly whacked.

That's a good point about the title.

I hadn't really given it any thought before, but now I think about it, if I came across the title for the first time, I would assume the 'trouble' meant a telling off from someone. I wonder if that's why the American version changed the name to Five Caught in a Treacherous Plot?

[pete9012S]

Thank you for the reminder of that alternative title which I had forgotten Katharine.
Here's the sumptuous, delectable artwork that accompanied the title, along with the fast-paced rear cover blurb.

(Look away now John!!!)





Does the blurb give too much away??
Doesn't Betty Maxey make those gates look quite unclimbable!

[John Pickup]

The basket on the front of Dick's bike looks like a bloke's face with glasses. And who would have gates that high? Why is Anne's basket full of ice cream? Typical Maxey!

[StephenC]

Get Into Trouble, in my view, was a step up from the previous seven FF books. The villains became more sinister, and the plots more intricate, with this book, a trend that continued with Fall Into Adventure, and on until Mystery Moor, the best of the series, in my opinion. I think that Get Into Trouble was the book in which we learn that Aunt Fanny is the sister of Julian, Dick and Anne's mother, if memory serves me.

[Debbie]

One of my favourite stories too. However along with what sounds like a lot of others, I always wondered why they didn't at least make a shot of climbing the walls/gate.
Would they have had electric fencing back in those days? Compare to the FFO I think it's "Hidden House" when they climb over a wall with glass on, which sounded far higher and more difficult to climb.

Perton and Hunchy are such great adversaries. You have smooth talking Purton who is far scarier for his calm, but you can feel ruthlessness underneath it-to his friends as well as his enemies. And Hunchy who is angry, threatens violence and you also feel will do whatever he thinks is needed.

I did find the ending a little disappointing though. Hunchy having been a really scary adversary just leaves Julian running around as the police arrive. Purton might have done that, thinking he could sweet talk the police. Hunchy, no. The book feels cut short to me, as though there's something missing between-Purton telling Hunchy to leave it, or him still looking for Julian.

I think Five get into trouble is a good title. They did get into trouble-for trespass! But it's more than that, they also get into trouble as in are caught in someone else's trap. A double meaning. Although I'm not sure EB meant it like that!