The Secret Series (Enid Blyton) has one or two narrow escapes from being detained by them. The novel was originally written as a serial and, in 1938, published as a full-length novel. It was one of Enid Blyton's earliest adventure novels, preceding The Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers, The Adventure Series, The Secret Seven, and school books which would appear in following years. The children, reunited with their parents again (and Jack now adopted as part of the family), go on holiday at the rugged Cornish coast with a family friend, Miss Dimity ("Dimmy", who would appear in several further books in the series), and
Enid Blyton to the psychologist Peter McKellar, Blyton describes her writing technique: In another letter to McKellar she describes how in just five days she wrote the 60,000-word book "The River of Adventure", the eighth in her Adventure Series, by listening to what she referred to as her "under-mind", which she contrasted with her "upper conscious mind". Blyton was unwilling to conduct any research or planning before beginning work on a new book, which coupled with the lack of variety in her life according to Druce almost inevitably presented the danger that she might unconsciously, and clearly did, plagiarise the books she