Enid Blyton
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Enid Mary Blyton (August 11, 1897–November 28, 1968) was a British children's author. She is noted for numerous series of books based on recurring characters and designed for different age groups. Her books have enjoyed popular success in many parts of the world, and have exceeded sales of 400 million. In 2006, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world, according to the Index Translationum, measured by the volume, over 3300, of translations of her works, after Lenin but ahead of Barbara Cartland.
One of her most widely known characters is Noddy. Other particularly popular series include the Famous Five (consisting of 21 novels, 1942–1963, based on four children and their dog who have various adventures) and Secret Seven books (consisting of 15 novels, 1949–1963, about a society of seven children who solve various mysteries).
Her work involves children's adventure stories, and fantasy, often involving magic. Her books were and still are enormously popular in Britain, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and Australia. Her work has been translated into nearly 90 languages, including Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Malay, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish. Translated versions became and have remained extremely popular in many parts of Europe and Asia.
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[edit] Personal life
Blyton was born on 11 August 1897 at 354 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London, the eldest child of Thomas Carey Blyton (1870–1920), a salesman of cutlery, and his wife, Theresa Mary, née Harrison (1874–1950). There were two younger brothers, Hanly (b. 1899), and Carey (b. 1902), who were born after the family had moved to the nearby suburb of Beckenham. From 1907 to 1915, Enid was educated at St. Christopher's School in Beckenham, where she excelled at her endeavours, leaving as head girl. She enjoyed physical activities along with the academic work, but not maths.
Enid was a talented pianist, but gave up her musical studies when she trained as a teacher. She taught for five years at Bickley and Surbiton, writing in her spare time. Her first book, Child Whispers, a collection of poems, was published in 1922.
On 28 August 1924 Blyton married Major Hugh Alexander Pollock DSO (1888–1971), editor of the book department in the publishing firm of George Newnes, which published two of her books that year. The couple moved to Buckinghamshire. Eventually they moved to a house called "Green Hedges" in Beaconsfield. They had two children: Gillian Mary Baverstock (b. 15 July 1931) and Imogen Mary Smallwood (b. 27 October 1935).
In the mid-1930s Blyton had an experience of a spiritual crisis, but she decided against converting to Roman Catholicism from the Church of England because she had felt it was "too constricting." Although she rarely attended church services, she saw that her two daughters were baptised into the Anglican faith and went to the local Sunday School.
By 1939 her marriage to Pollock was in difficulties, and in 1941 she met Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters (1892–1967), a London surgeon, with whom she began a friendship which quickly developed into something deeper. After each had divorced, they married at the City of Westminster register office on 20 October 1943, and she subsequently changed the surname of her two daughters to Darrell Waters. Pollock remarried and had little contact with his daughters thereafter. Blyton's second marriage was very happy and, as far as her public was concerned, she moved smoothly into her role as a devoted doctor's wife, living with him and her two daughters at Green Hedges.
Blyton's husband died in 1967. During the following months, she became increasingly ill. Afflicted by Alzheimer's disease, Blyton was moved into a nursing home three months before her death; she died at the Greenways Nursing Home, 11 Fellows Road, Hampstead, London, on 28 November 1968, and was cremated at Golders Green.
Blyton's literary output was of an estimated 800 books over roughly 40 years. Chorion Limited of London now owns and handles the intellectual properties and character brands of Blyton's Noddy and the Famous Five.
[edit] Most popular works
- The Adventure series
- The Barney Mystery series
- The Circus series
- The Famous Five series
- The Magic Faraway Tree series
- The Malory Towers series
- The Mary Mouse series
- The Mystery series (also known as the Five Find-Outers)
- The Naughtiest Girl series
- The Noddy books
- The Secret series
- The Secret Seven series
- The St. Clare's series
- The Wishing-Chair series
[edit] Other works
She wrote hundreds of other books for young and older children, including Chimney Corner Stories. She also filled a large number of magazine pages, particularly the long-running Sunny Stories which were immensely popular among younger children.
An estimate puts her total book publication at around 800 titles, not including decades of magazine writing. It is said that at one point in her career she regularly produced 10,000 words a day.
Blyton also wrote many books on fantasy, nature, non-fiction and many other categories.
Such prolific output led many to believe that some of her work was ghost-written. Yet, no ghost writers have come forward. She used a pseudonym Mary Pollock for a few titles (middle name plus first married name). The last volumes in her most famous series were published in 1963. Many books still appeared after that, but were mainly story books made up from re-cycled work.
Blyton also wrote numerous books on nature and Biblical themes. Her story The Land of Far-Beyond is a Christian parable along the lines of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, with modern children as the central characters. She also produced retellings of Old Testament and New Testament stories.
[edit] Subject matter
Blyton's books often referenced the fantasies of pre-pubescent children. Children are free to play and explore without adult interference, more clearly than in most authors before or since. Adult characters are usually either authority figures (such as policemen, teachers, or parents) or adversaries to be conquered by the children. The children are often self-sufficient, spending whole days, or even more than one day, away from home. This theme is taken to its extreme in two books: Five Run Away Together and The Secret Island, wherein a group of children run away from unpleasant guardians to live on an island together, making a home and fending for themselves until their parents return.
Blyton's books are generally split into three types. One involves ordinary children in extraordinary situations; having adventures, solving crimes, or otherwise finding themselves in unusual circumstances. Examples include the Famous Five and Secret Seven, and the Adventure series. The second type is the boarding school story; the plots of these are usually less extraordinary than the first type, with more emphasis on the day-to-day life at a boarding school. This is the world of the midnight feast, the practical joke, and the social interaction of the various types of character that can be found at school. Examples of this type are the Malory Towers stories, the St Clare's series, and the Naughtiest Girl books.
The third type is the fantastical. Children are typically transported into a magical world in which they meet fairies, goblins, elves, or other fantastical creatures. Examples of this type are the Wishing-Chair books and the Magic Faraway Tree.
[edit] Controversies
[edit] The books are dated in attitudes
The books are very much of their time, particularly the 1950s titles. They present a none-too-subtle version of Britain's class system - i.e. "rough" versus "well-behaved". Undoubtedly present are some stereotypes regarding gender. It is now widely considered that the portrayal of golliwogs, amongst others, is racist. On the other hand, the Famous Five displayed a remarkably modern equality of teamwork between the sexes, and only one golliwog ever appeared as the villain of a single Noddy book, while elsewhere in her fantasy works golliwogs appeared as the heroes.
[edit] 'Blyton bans': truth and myths
It was frequently reported, in the 1950s and also from the 1980s onwards, that various children's libraries removed some of Blyton's works from the shelves. The history of such 'Blyton bans' is confused. Some librarians certainly at times felt that Blyton's restricted use of language, a conscious product of her teaching background, militated against appreciation of more literary qualities. There was some precedent, in the treatment of L. Frank Baum's Oz books (and the many sequels, by others) by librarians in the U.S. in the 1930s.
A more careful account of anti-Blyton attacks is given in Chapter 4 of Robert Druce's This Day Our Daily Fictions. The British Journal of Education in 1955 carried a piece by Janice Dohn, an American children's librarian, considering Blyton's writing together with authors of formula fiction, and making negative comments about Blyton's devices and tone. A 1958 article in Encounter by Colin Welch, directed against the Noddy character, was reprinted in a New Zealand librarians' periodical. This gave rise to the first rumour of a New Zealand 'library ban' on Blyton's books, a recurrent press canard. Policy on buying and stocking Blyton's books by British public libraries drew attention in newspaper reports from the early 1960s to the end of the 1970s, as local decisions were made by a London borough, Birmingham, Nottingham and other central libraries. There is no evidence that her books' popularity ever suffered. She was defended by populist journalists, and others; newspapers ran articles condemning her work, with a piece in 1966 in The Guardian claiming that Blyton wrote more insidiously dangerous right-wing literature than that published by British fascist groups.
[edit] Altered reprints
Modern reprints of some books have had changes made (such as the replacement of golliwogs with teddy bears). This response from the publishers to contemporary attitudes on racial stereotypes has itself drawn criticism from those adults who view it as tampering with an important piece of the history of children's literature. The Druce book brings up a single case of a story, The Little Black Doll, which could be interpreted as a racist message (the doll wanted to be pink) and which was turned on its head in a reprint (apparently not considered racist).
[edit] Statistics
- Her books have sold more than 400 million copies [citation needed]
- She is constantly voted a children's favourite
- Her books still continue to sell more than 8 million copies worldwide
- More than a million Famous Five books are sold worldwide
- Her books have been translated into more than 90 different languages
[edit] Trivia
- In a survey of adults between the ages of 25 and 54 conducted by Cartoon Network in England in 2004, The Famous Five was named as the top children's book. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis, came second, ahead of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings tied with a second Blyton title — The Secret Seven in fourth place.
- An oblique critique of a Blyton work is found in Jasper Fforde's novel The Well of Lost Plots (2003). The heroine, Thursday Next, should change the ending of Shadow the Sheepdog by entering the novel's world. Thursday is surprised at the one-dimensionality of the characters. They have limited vocabulary, intelligence and emotional scope, and are confined to designated paths. Even stranger is that the characters attack Thursday simply because they are hungry for feeling and emotion. She finally escapes after showing the characters how to feel guilt, enmity, hate, anger and so on, missing from Blyton's world according to Fforde.
- On Flanders and Swann's album At the Drop of Another Hat, Michael Flanders introduces his partner, Donald Swann, in part, as "the Enid Blyton of English light music".
- Pop group The Enid took their name from her.
- Many of the hardcover editions of her books bore a facsimile of her signature.
- Her nephew was the Doctor Who composer Carey Blyton.
- Some of the stories were said to have been inspired by the Cottingley Fairies incidents.
- The name of an important female character in her Malory Towers series (Darrell Rivers) was inspired by the name of her second husband, Kenneth Darrel Waters.
- Blyton claimed that she made a donation to charity for each letter that did not receive a reply.
- Letters from Bobs, one of Blyton's early works, sold more than 10,000 copies in just one week.
[edit] See also
- Category:Enid Blyton's books for chronological listings
- Enid Blyton's illustrators
- Enid Blyton's single novels
- Enid Blyton's short stories
- Enid Blyton Society
[edit] Notes
see another great site http://www.famousfive.org.uk
[edit] References
- Enid Blyton (1952) The Story of My Life
- Barbara Stoney (1974) Enid Blyton, 1992 The Enid Blyton Biography, Hodder, London ISBN 0-340-58348-7 (paperback) ISBN 0-340-16514-6
- Mason Willey (1993) Enid Blyton: A Bibliography of First Editions and Other Collectible Books ISBN 0-9521284-0-3
- S. G. Ray (1982) The Blyton Phenomenon
- Bob Mullan (1987) The Enid Blyton Story
- George Greenfield (1998) Enid Blyton
- Robert Druce (1992) This Day Our Daily Fictions: An Enquiry into the Multi-Million Bestseller Status of Enid Blyton and Ian Fleming
Enid Blyton
