I read somewhere that it wasn't like this. Bertelsmann had get permission by Hodder to write the continuation novels, but hadn't asked Waters Ltd (I think that is/was the name then). This organisation objected to the continuation novels then.Chrissie777 wrote:I even unearthed the 22nd and 23rd FF books written by Brigitte Blobel (which EB's heirs didn't accept and therefore forced Bertelsmann to stop selling them, but then a few years later French author Claude Voilier was all off a sudden allowed to write FF continuation stories which never made much sense to me).
It sounds plausible to me, because some years ago there was a quarrel between the publisher of the German "Three investigators" series and Europa that publishes the audiobooks of the brand. Obviously rights can be divided and limited, which doesn't make it easy to see through things.
All five book mentioned by you were "officially" published in Germany, but "The Secret Island", "The Secret of Spiggy Holes", "The Adventurous Four" and "The Adventurous Four Again" were heavily edited to fit into one series. I think that the changes to "Spiggy Holes" were not that extensive, the main plot was kept intact, but admittedly I have read the English edition only once and the German edition maybe two times.Chrissie777 wrote: Several EB books like "The Secret Island", "The Secret of Spiggy Holes", "The Hollow Tree House", "The Adventurous Four" and "The Adventurous Four Again" were new discoveries for me since 2008. They were either not translated into German at all or have been turned into different stories in order to create a new book series.