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Titles to Look Out For:
[in ascending order from earliest to latest work published. Each listing includes later editions and printings]
February 1939. Four Plus Bunkle
1945. Bunkle Bought It
1948. Bunkle & Belinda
1953. Bunkle Scents A Clue

About the Author:
Born in 1902, Margot Pardoe only started writing after marrying John Swift (she had spent time training as an opera singer in Paris). Margot Pardoe published her first book in 1936 called 'The Far Island'.

The author's Bunkle character, around who 12 books were published, was called Bunkle by his brother Robin and sister Jill (de Salis) because he talked a lot of bunk. The books proved so popular with young people in Britain that 'Four Plus Bunkle', 'Bunkle Began It' and 'Bunkle Butts In' were adapted for radio and made Bunkle one of the most popular features of Children's Hour.

Whilst the author wrote two other series of books in the 1940s and 1950s, and additionally two thrillers, it was a Bunkle book that capped the author's literary career. 'Bunkle Brings It Off' was published in 1961.

Margot Pardoe died in 1996

• Four Plus Bunkle [top]
  Illustrated by J. D. Evans
  First published in February 1939 in Great Britain in hardback with dustjacket by George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 222pp, no ISBN. Price when originally sold: 6s. net.

About this book/storyline: In this story for nine to sixteen year-olds, the author introduces us to three new children who are in every way as natural and delightful as the Fraser children in her previous book "The Far Island". And Bunkle, the youngest, is a character who cannot fail to make his way into the affections and hearts of adults and children alike. An intercepted S.O.S. flashed with a looking-glass from a Riviera Hotel window leads Jill, Robin and Bunkle de Salis to the room of a British Secret Service Agent, who appeals for their help in delivering a vital document which he is too closely under suspicion to delivery himself. A chance meeting at a railway station in the middle of France brings them the help of Dick and Jean Fraser, who are on their way back to the Swiss school to which they go after leaving the Far Island. The two families join forces, and their adventures and the obstacles they overcome make really thrilling reading.

Contents:
Foreword
1. The Telegram
2. Exit Mademoiselle
3. An S.O.S.
4. D.39
5. Escape
6. A Night Drive
7. Frasers to the Rescue
8. Trunk Call
9. Over the Frontier
10. Into the Mountains
11. Hue and Cry
12. A Fright for Robin
13. Down the Bob Run
14. End to Adventures

• Bunkle Bought It [top]
  First published in 1945 in Great Britain by Routledge & Kegan Paul in hardback
  Reprinted in 1946 in Great Britain by Routledge & Kegan Paul in hardback
  Reprinted for a second time in 1949 in Great Britain by Routledge & Kegan Paul, with dustjacket, 228pp, No ISBN. Original UK retail price: 7s. 6d. net (7 shillings & sixpence)

Story: Bunkle buys a portable hen-house, some corrugated iron sheets and other things at a country auction sale, acquires a fierce parrot and a determination to save the farm of his friend, young Mr. Snagge. With the help of Robin's home-made motor-car they track down a certain old desk with a secret drawer-and so save the farm.

Chapters:
1. An Awful Prospect
2. Monkey Puzzle
3. Upstairs and Down
4. Everyone Busy
5. Bunkle's Brainwave
6. "Bavins"
7. High Copse
8. "Catch is the Clue"
9. Warming Up
10. Maude Likes Charcoal
11. Against the Law
12. Properly Stuck
13. Making the Best of It
14. Farm Breakfast
15. Bunkle's Alibi
16. Breaking and Entering
17. Evasive Action
18. Quite by Accident
19. What's the Verdict

• Bunkle & Belinda [top]
  Illustrated by Julie Neild
  First published in 1948 in Great Britain by Routledge & Kegan Paul in hardback with dustjacket, 215pp, no ISBN
  Original UK retail price 7s. 6d. net (7 shillings and sixpence)

Chapters:
1. Cornish Express
2. Idle Apprentice
3. Belinda and Donk
4. A Queer Garden
5. Down the Mine
6. Sea Minerals
7. Suspicion Deepens
8. The Seventh Wave
9. More than a Rabbit-Hole
10. Mist and Mystery
11. Gulls Hole Gallery
12. Bunkle at a Loss
13. The Other Tunnel
14. Still very secret
15. A Friend in Need
16. Stranger than Fiction