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 daughter Imogen has stated that she "loved a relationship with children through her books", but real children were an intrusion, and there was no room for intruders in the world that Blyton occupied through her writing. Accusations of racism in Blyton's books were first made by Lena Jeger in a "Guardian" article published in 1966, in which she was critical of Blyton's "The Little Black Doll", published a few months earlier. Sambo, the black doll of the title, is hated by his owner and the other toys owing to his "ugly black face", and runs away. A shower of rain