George's own home and various other houses the children visit or stay in are hundreds of years old and often contain secret passages or smugglers' tunnels.

However, the settings are almost always rural and enable the children to discover the simple joys of cottages, islands, the English and Welsh countryside and sea shores, as well as an outdoor life of picnics, bicycle trips and swimming.

[2] Blyton was a nature writer early in her career, and the books are strongly atmospheric, with a detailed but idealised presentation of the rural landscape.

Pete Cash of the English Association has noted that the children "are allowed to go off on their own to an extent that today would contravene the Child Protection Act (1999) and interest Social Services.

[1] Cash noted that the characters do not watch television apart from one appearance in 1947, or even make much use of radios, despite George's father's work presumably involving advanced technology.

[1] The books have been criticised for being repetitive, with repeated use of stock elements such as obnoxious, unfriendly people who turn out to be criminals and the discovery of a secret passageway.

The seemingly perpetual youth of the Famous Five, who experience a world of apparently endless holidays while not ageing significantly,[6] is known as a floating timeline.

J. K. Rowling commented of her Harry Potter series that she deliberately intended to avoid this in her writing: "in book four the hormones are going to kick in – I don't want him stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence like poor Julian in the Famous Five!

It starred Michele Gallagher as Georgina, Marcus Harris as Julian, Jennifer Thanisch as Anne, Gary Russell as Dick, Toddy Woodgate as Timmy, Michael Hinz as Uncle Quentin and Sue Best as Aunt Fanny.

It also starred Ronald Fraser, John Carson, Patrick Troughton, James Villiers, Cyril Luckham and Brian Glover.

[11] Due to the success of the series, Southern Television were keen to make another season of episodes, but the Enid Blyton estate forbade them to create original stories.

[12] The 1978 series was originally released on video by Portman Productions with reasonable regularity between 1983 and 1999, many of which are still easy to find second-hand, although the sound and picture quality is not always what it could be.

A four DVD set containing all 26 episodes, without additional content, was released for region 4 (Australia and New Zealand) in late 2011, as Enid Blyton's The Famous Five: The Complete Collection.

(The Finnish punk band Widows (of Helsinki) made three different cover versions of the theme song, the first in early 1979, as did the Irish indie outfit Fleur, in 1996.)

Famous 5: On the Case is set in modern times and features the children of the original Famous Five: Max (the son of Julian and Brandine), Dylan (son of Dick and Michelle), Jo (daughter of George and Ravi – a tomboy who, like her mother, prefers a shorter name to her given name Jyoti) and Allie (daughter of Anne and John).

Chorion claims on its website that "these new programmes will remain faithful to the themes of mystery and adventure central to Enid Blyton's classic series of books.

For the sequels (not written by Blyton and decidedly more "modern" action-oriented stories) the speakers were replaced by younger ones, because it was felt that they sounded too mature.

Principal actors: Elizabeth Marsland, Lyndon Ogbourne, Matthew Johnson, Vicky Taylor, Jon Lee, Director: Roz Storey[19] and also in the five A brand new musical adaptation was premièred at the Tabard Theatre on 8 December 2009 and played until 10 January 2010.

Six comic albums drawn by Bernard Dufossé and scripted by Serge Rosenzweig and Rafael Carlo Marcello were released in France between 1982 and 1986, under the title Le Club des Cinq.

[22] The parodies were deliberately set towards the end of the original Famous Five "era" (1942–63) so as to make the point that the books were already becoming outmoded while they were still being written.

George and Julian have been committed to an alcoholics' sanatorium, the latter owes a large debt to African gangsters, and Anne recently served a prison sentence for setting her nanny aflame.

Parodies began early: in 1964, only the year after the last book was published, John Lennon in his work In His Own Write had the short story The Famous Five through Woenow Abbey.

The fourth short story in Fearsome Tales for Fiendish Kids by Jamie Rix is named "The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping", which is about five children in 1952 on a picnic in Kent during the summer holidays.

After their nap, the youngest wants an apple to eat so the children decide to steal from a nearby orchard, but they are caught by the owner, who is armed with a shotgun.

George is a happily married mother, Dick has gone to live in a commune in America, and Anne has just been released from prison having murdered a man with a ginger beer bottle.

Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls features "The Famous Five Go Pillaging", – a short story which parodies the writing style of Enid Blyton; five children witness the collapse of Roman imperialism and their friends and family are slaughtered by 9000 invading Vikings.

[25][26] Vincent went on to write several more titles in the series: Five at the Office Christmas Party, Five Get Gran Online, Five Get On the Property Ladder, Five Go Bump in the Night, Five Escape Brexit Island, Five Get Beach Body Ready, Five Lose Dad in the Garden Centre, and Five Forget Mother's Day.

Julian has become a successful stockbroker, Dick is a well-meaning but inept and overweight policeman, Anne is a worrisome housewife, and George is a feminist community worker (with her flatulent bulldog Gary in tow).