My introduction to EB was circa 1984, aged six, thanks to my sister who had a drawer full of books, including every single Famous Five book ever written, and supplemented about the age of nine by the elder sister of a friend/neighbour who gave me a whole set of Malory Towers. The last time I saw these was about fifteen years ago, when I read a few, aged about eighteen. Then they went into storage somewhere and my old love for the EB world slept… until finding this site about four days ago.
Well two nights ago I declared war on the general crapness of what my world has turned into and went fumbling around my attic at about eleven o’clock at night (might as well make it an adventure, eh?). After about thirty minutes of scaring the neighbours by having my foot come through their ceilings, I came across a broken down cardboard box. Further investigation after a swig of ginger beer for courage revealed many wobbly paper rectangles…
Mishapen from damp damage, in one case spotted with ancient mould… I had found them. Two Famous Fives, three Malory Towers and one St Clares were missing, which was saddening, but more to the point, nineteen Famous Fives, five St Clares, three Mallory Towers and a couple of Mysteries were intact, not one of them later in edition than 1979. In addition I also had a three pack of the first three Adventure stories, bought in the late ‘80’s.
Not just this, knee-knockingly wonderful though this is… but the briefest and most cursory searches of eBay revealed decades old editions of the ones I was missing!
Ladies and gents, I am going to find myself a corner and hug myself for a few hours. This is a very moving moment.
I've got some of the original hardbacks myself but others I have to make do with rubbishy modern paperbacks 
