The Mountain of Adventure by Enid Blyton
Like many of my age, I grew up reading Enid Blyton. For most of my childhood, my parents made the decision not to have a TV in the house. Although this was an unpopular decision with myself and my siblings, I look back with admiration as it meant we were moved to use our time in other (more constructive?) ways. Living in rural Mid-Wales, this meant spending a lot of time outside, but it also meant reading – a lot of reading!
My earliest memories of reading include Malcolm Saville, Arthur Ransome, Ladybird books, as well as lots of non-fiction such as Usborne books on nature. But probably the largest number of books in our home library were written by Enid Blyton.
We had the whole range in the collection. Everything from Mr Meddle, Brer Rabbit, Noddy, Secret Seven, and the Five Find-outers. My favourites were the Famous Five – and best of all - the Adventure Series.
Growing up, the Adventure Series just seemed so much more grown-up than the other Blytons! “Grown-up” is a very relative term in this context, but they seemed more exotic than other series, with more interesting settings than the locations portrayed in the Secret Seven or even the Famous Five books. They were also much thicker than other Blyton books making the young reader feel much more mature!
While the paperbacks I read as a child had cover illustrations by Pamela Goodchild, the original books featured beautiful dust wrappers by Stuart Tresilian, who also drew the black and white illustrations found throughout the books. These wrap-around colour illustrations really add to the mature feel of the books, as well as giving them a lovely antiquarian appearance on the shelf. In fact, the Adventure Series is the only set of Enid Blyton books that my wife and I have in our personal book collection.
I’ve chosen The Mountain of Adventure for this featured book article, both because we have a 1st edition in stock at the time of writing, and because it’s set in the Welsh Mountains, which of course are not far from the location of our shop and where I spent my childhood.
This is the fifth book in the series and again sees Philip, Dinah, Jack, Lucy-Ann and Kiki the parrot fall into ‘the most extraordinary adventure’. The book starts with the children heading to a remote farmhouse in the ‘Welsh Mountains’ at a place that apparently sounds like ‘Doth-goth-oo-elli-othel-in’! Despite 40 years living in Wales, this is about the same level as my Welsh pronunciation!
Anyway, what is meant to be a quiet and peaceful holiday rapidly evaporates when the children get lost during a camping trip in the mountains. Lost in the mountain mist, strange things start to happen. Upon investigation the children discover that the mountain is hiding a dangerous secret – as well as perpetrators who will stop at nothing to protect their sinister activities! All very exciting!
Despite being written in 1949, I still think this book makes a great read for children – and maybe adults too. I think it’s well-worth taking a trip down memory lane and re-reading this classic!
Contributed by Steve
(Published 13th Jun 2023)
