The Secret Seven are siblings Peter and Janet, and Jack, Barbara, Pam, Colin and George. Together they are The Secret Seven - ready to solve any mystery, any time - in Enid Blyton's classic series of 15 mystery novels.
When the gang go star-gazing, they soon get bored and spy on the town - and see someone setting a haystack on fire.
Will the Seven act fast enough to save the barn?
In addition to the Secret Seven novels, Enid Blyton wrote six short stories based on the characters which are published in The Secret Seven Short Story Collection (Hodder). The stories are also available in individual volumes, divided into chapters to make them ideal for newly confident readers. They have been illustrated in full colour by Tony Ross.
Enid Mary Blyton (1897–1968) was an English author of children's books.
Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.
Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's.
According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.