The Secret Seven

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lizarfau
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The Secret Seven

Post by lizarfau »

I never liked these much as a child, but Gabriel (who's 6) has really got into them of late. He's been buying these new editions (because, unlike with her other books, I don't have the old editions), whereby the characters on the front look as if they're straight out of Bob the Builder. Really, truly awful covers!

I only read a handful as a child, but these are my observations coming to them via Gabriel as an adult (FWIW):

Peter really is a pompous prat - he makes Julian look like a SNAG.
It's impossible to read about kids going round wearing badges saying SS without thinking of the Nazis.
I'm not in favour of updating texts, but given these texts are updated, how the heck has Peter's telling Jack that he should keep his little sister in order "the way I keep Janet in order" survived????
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by dsr »

Peter may have said that, but was Janet listening at the time? :lol:

Is it confirmed in the books that Peter is older than Janet? I always had the impression they were about the same age, but presumably there would be a year or so difference because I'm sure they were never mentioned as twins. How old were the SS children anyway?

As far as the German SS goes, they're very widely known now of course, but when the Secret Seven books started, how widely were they known about? Did everyone know of them, or only those who read the newspapers in detail, or somewhere in between? What I'm getting at is, could Enid have not really realised that SS was a pretty dodgy acronym? (Actually, on further thought, her publisher must have known about the SS even if she didn't, so it must have been a deliberate decision to ignore the implications.)
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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Or perhaps a deliberate decision to apply those letters to something more innocent?

The Secret Seven seem to me to be about 9-10 years old, which might explain why they don't go to boarding-school. That leaves Enid Blyton free to set a number of their adventures outside school holiday times without having to have the children convalescing after catching measles!

Anita
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Lenoir »

lizarfau wrote:I'm not in favour of updating texts, but given these texts are updated, how the heck has Peter's telling Jack that he should keep his little sister in order "the way I keep Janet in order" survived????
I think it’s good that they left this in. I can’t see why they would want to remove it, unless the aim is to make the books as bland as possible. It is fairly true to life, i.e. boys do say things like this at one stage or the other. I haven’t seen any text that should be changed in these books.

Peter is very bossy at times, and displays MCP tendencies as well, but Janet does stand up to him, and he usually backs down if confronted. In another scene, she squirts lemon juice at him when he suggests that she is ‘pretty annoying sometimes’.
I also think he mellows a bit towards the end of the series.

I quite enjoyed these books as a child, but they were soon overshadowed by the great FFO. I never actually owned any SS until I started to collect books much later. I think I appreciate them more now.

I never saw the connection to the other SS until someone mentioned it a few months ago. Surely Enid just thought secret seven had a nice ring to it, (like famous five / FF)?
Or maybe Anita has a good point, that it was deliberate.

In one book, Janet thinks to herself that they should be the S.S.S.S.S. Super Smashing Secret Seven Society!
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Moonraker »

I must say, I loved the SS - and still do. To me, they are an excellent introduction to the heavier Five Find-Outers and Dog (what a flippin' mouthfull) series. I still re-read them now, and enjoy them immensely.

Reading them in the 50s, I never made any connections with Hitler's SS. But then, maybe Anita is right, Enid was trying to re-invent the initials to give them a friendlier appearance.

She succeeded.
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

I don't normally collect early editions of the major series as I still have all my childhood paperbacks, dating from the 1970s, but I have just picked up a Brockhampton Press 1966 fifth impression of Three Cheers Secret Seven , which is perhaps my favourite Secret Seven title (it's the story featuring Susie's new aeroplane). The endpapers are emblazoned with pictures of the Secret Seven, Scamper and "SS" badges, while the front flap of the dust-jacket proclaims emphatically: "SS stands for the Secret Seven." Would we even dare suggest that it might ever have stood for anything else, after reading that?! :wink:

There is a photograph of Enid Blyton on the back flap together with a few paragraphs focussing on her as a reader and naturalist (and painting an overly rosy picture of her family life!):

"For many years now she has been Britain's best-loved and most popular children's author. The wife of a distinguished London surgeon, she has two daughters of her own, Gillian and Imogen. They were her earliest critics and most ardent fans. Wide and deep in her reading and a very fine naturalist, she is interested in science, philosophy and people. In character, Enid Blyton is like her books: lively, witty, kind, generous and very approachable."

Quite different from the dismissive remarks one hears about her today!

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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Lucky Star »

dsr wrote: As far as the German SS goes, they're very widely known now of course, but when the Secret Seven books started, how widely were they known about? Did everyone know of them, or only those who read the newspapers in detail, or somewhere in between?
I would imagine that most people had heard of the Nazi SS by the time the books appeared in 1949. The Nuremberg trials and the newsreels of Belsen and other such places would have ensured that. Also the message on Anita's dustjacket would seem to confirm that someone, somewhere realised the association. Crucially though Children may not have been familiar with the SS acronym and the books, lest we forget, were aimed at children. I am inclined to agree with Anita that Blyton perhaps thought she would give her young and impressionable readers a more happy memory of the letters SS than the one they would later encounter.
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Susie »

The message with the Seven Seven is why should we let them take the innocent letter S and spoil it!
It's very brave of the printer/ publishers too. It could of been very harsh for them. I wonder if they did get negative mail, we will never know.
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Were the Secret Seven books reviewed in the press as they were published, I wonder? If so, did reviewers comment on the connotations of "SS"?

(In fact, were any Enid Blyton titles reviewed in the press as they came out? It would be interesting to see what critics had to say.)

What about the Secret Seven book that was serialised in the Sunday Graphic, and was therefore more likely to be seen by adults? Did any readers write to the paper expressing concern about the "SS" initials?

The "SS" badges were first mentioned in Secret of the Old Mill (1948). At that stage, "SS" stood for "Seven Society."

Just noticed that my 1997 Hodder paperback erroneously calls the story The Secret of Old Mill.

Anita
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Ming »

I must say I still don't know what the German SS stood for! :roll:
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Moonraker »

It was formed in 1925 to serve as Adolph Hitler's personal bodyguard. The letters SS stood for Schutzstaffel. It means "Protective Squadron".
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Stephen »

A very intreguing bit is when Susie and friends form a rival group to the Secret Seven and call themselves the Famous Five - "after the Five books!" And if I remember rightly, a character in one of the The Wishing Chair stories refers to The Faraway Tree books. Could Enid Blyton have been one of the very first writers to use "post-modern irony" in her work?
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Yes, and in Secret Seven Win Through Colin brings his collection of Famous Five books to the cave that the Secret Seven use as a meeting-place. Doesn't one of the criminals in the story actually read a couple of them, or am I getting a bit carried away there?! :)

When I was about five I asked my mum if I could have Sunny Stories magazine, because Mr. Meddle read Sunny Stories in one of the Meddle books and I wanted to see what it was like. My mum said she'd never heard of it and it was probably just made up, but of course it had been a real magazine which was written and edited by Enid Blyton for many years!

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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Petermax »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:Yes, and in Secret Seven Win Through Colin brings his collection of Famous Five books to the cave that the Secret Seven use as a meeting-place. Doesn't one of the criminals in the story actually read a couple of them, or am I getting a bit carried away there?! :)
I remember that particular story although I last read the Secret Seven well over thirty years ago. I'm quite sure that I recall a telescope being stolen in the same story and thrown into a pond or was it in another Seven book?
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Re: The Secret Seven

Post by Julie2owlsdene »

I've never read any of these books, but after reading a part story, that was in the Enid Blyton Treasury, I decided to watch out on EBAY, and add these to my collection.

Already I have Secret Seven Fireworks, which I have started to read. Three more are on order, and I'm looking forward to collecting and reading these books.

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