Enid Blyton was an English
children's writer also known as
Mary Pollock.
Noted for numerous series of books based on recurring characters and designed for different age groups,her books have enjoyed huge success in many parts of the world, and have sold over 600 million copies.
One of Blyton's most widely known characters is Noddy, intended for early years readers. However, her main work is the genre of young readers' novels in which children have their own adventures with minimal adult help. Series of this type include the
Famous FiveThe Famous Five is the name of a series of children's novels written by British author Enid Blyton. The first book, Five on a Treasure Island, was published in 1942....
(21 novels, 1942–1963, based on four children and their dog), the Five Find-Outers and Dog, (15 novels, 1943–1961, where five children regularly outwit the local police) as well as
The Secret SevenThe Secret Seven or "Secret Seven Society" are a fictional group of child detectives created by Enid Blyton. They appear in one of several juvenile detective series Blyton wrote....
(15 novels, 1949–1963, a society of seven children who solve various mysteries).
Her work involves children's adventure stories, and fantasy, sometimes involving magic. Her books were and still are enormously popular throughout the
CommonwealthThe Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
; as translations in the former
YugoslaviaYugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, Japan; as adaptations in Arabic; and across most of the globe. Her work has been translated into nearly 90 languages.
Blyton's literary output was of an estimated 800 books over roughly 40 years.
Chorion LimitedChorion Limited is a major international media production company with offices in London, New York and Sydney. The company produces TV shows and feature films, and is best known for the heritage properties included in its portfolio. These include children's characters such as Paddington Bear, Peter...
of London now owns and handles the intellectual properties and character brands of Blyton's
Noddy and the well known series
the Famous Five.
Personal life
Blyton was born on 11 August 1897 at 354 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London, England, the eldest child of Thomas Carey Blyton (1870–1920), a salesman of cutlery, and his wife, Theresa Mary Harrison Blyton (1874–1950). There were two younger brothers, Hanly (1899–1983) and Carey (1902–1976), who were born after the family had moved to the nearby suburb of
BeckenhamBeckenham is a town in the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is located 8.4 miles south east of Charing Cross and 1.75 miles west of Bromley town...
—in Oakwood Avenue.
From 1907 to 1915, Blyton was educated at
St. Christopher's SchoolSt. Christopher's School is the name of several schools around the world, including:*St. Christopher's School, Bahrain*St. Christopher's School, Richmond, Virginia, USA*St. Christopher's School, Metairie, Louisiana, USA...
in
BeckenhamBeckenham is a town in the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is located 8.4 miles south east of Charing Cross and 1.75 miles west of Bromley town...
, leaving as head girl. She enjoyed physical activities along with some academic work, but not maths.
Blyton was a talented pianist, but gave up her musical studies when she trained as a teacher at
Ipswich High SchoolIpswich High School is a girls' independent school located at Woolverstone, near the town of Ipswich, England. It was founded in 1872 and is one of the schools of the Girls' Day School Trust.-History:...
. She taught for five years at
BickleyBickley is an affluent residential area and electoral ward in the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is a suburban development situated 10.4 miles south east of Charing Cross...
,
SurbitonSurbiton, a suburban area of London in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, is situated next to the River Thames, with a mixture of Art-Deco courts, more recent residential blocks and grand, spacious 19th century townhouses blending into a sea of semi-detached 20th century housing estates...
and
ChessingtonChessington is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in Greater London, England. The Hogsmill river runs through it. Neighbouring settlements include: Tolworth, Ewell, Surbiton, Claygate, Epsom, Oxshott, Leatherhead, Esher, Kingston upon Thames and Worcester Park.-History:Its name...
, writing in her spare time. Her first book,
Child WhispersChild Whispers is the first published work of the British children's author Enid Blyton. It is a collection of 28 poems and one of Blyton's most popular and well-known poetry books.-External links:*...
, a collection of poems, was published in 1922.
On 28 August 1924 Blyton married Major Hugh Alexander Pollock
DSOThe Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
(1888–1971), editor of the book department in the publishing firm of
George NewnesSir George Newnes, 1st Baronet was a publisher and editor in England.-Background and education:...
, which published two of her books that year. The couple moved to
Bourne EndBourne End is the name of more than one place. It is an old English name, referring to the point where two rivers join.In the United Kingdom:*Bourne End, Bletsoe, Bedfordshire*Bourne End, Cranfield, Bedfordshire*Bourne End, Buckinghamshire...
,
BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
(
Peterswood in her books). Eventually they moved to a house in
BeaconsfieldBeaconsfield is a market town and civil parish operating as a town council within the South Bucks district in Buckinghamshire, England. It lies northwest of Charing Cross in Central London, and south-east of the county town of Aylesbury...
, named
Green HedgesGreen Hedges was Enid Blyton's home from 1938 until near her death. She wrote most of her books there and also held the famous 'Story Parties' there...
by Blyton's readers following a competition in
Sunny Stories. They had two children: Gillian Mary Baverstock (15 July 1931 – 24 June 2007) and Imogen Mary Smallwood (born 27 October 1935).
In the mid-1930s Blyton experienced a spiritual crisis, but she decided against converting to Roman Catholicism from the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
because she had felt it was "too restricting".
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.
Since her death in 1968 and the publication of her daughter Imogen's autobiography,
A Childhood at Green Hedges, Blyton has emerged as an emotionally unstable and often malicious figure. By 1939 her marriage to Pollock was in difficulties, and she began a series of affairs. In 1941 she met Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters, a London surgeon with whom she began a relationship. During her divorce, Blyton blackmailed Pollock into taking full blame for the failure of the marriage, knowing that exposure of her adultery would ruin her public image. She promised that if he admitted to charges of infidelity, she would allow him unlimited access to their daughters. However, after the divorce, Pollock was forbidden to contact his daughters, and Blyton ensured he was unable to find work in publishing afterward. He turned to drinking heavily and was forced to petition for bankruptcy.
Blyton and Darrell Waters married at the
City of WestminsterThe City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
Register Office on 20 October 1943, and she subsequently changed the surname of her two daughters to Darrell Waters. Pollock remarried thereafter. Blyton's second marriage was very happy and, as far as her public image 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 diseaseAlzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
, Blyton was moved into a nursing home three months before her death; she died at the Greenways Nursing Home, London, on 28 November 1968, aged 71 years and was cremated at the
Golders Green CrematoriumGolders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000, and was opened in 1902 by Sir Henry Thompson....
where her ashes remain.
Blyton's home, Green Hedges, was sold in 1971 and demolished in 1973. The area where Green Hedges once stood is now occupied by houses and a street called Blyton Close.
Her daughter Imogen has been quoted as saying "The truth is Enid Blyton was arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind, and without a trace of maternal instinct. As a child, I viewed her as a rather strict authority. As an adult I pitied her." Elder daughter, Gillian, did not hold the same view toward their mother, and Imogen's biography of Blyton contains a foreword by Gillian to the effect that her memories of childhood with Enid Blyton were mainly happy ones.
Most successful works
- The Five Find-Outers
The Five Find-Outers and Dog , also known as the Enid Blyton Mystery Series, is a series of children's mystery books written by Enid Blyton and first published between 1943 and 1961...
(Also known as Enid Blyton's Mystery series)
- The Famous Five series
The Famous Five is the name of a series of children's novels written by British author Enid Blyton. The first book, Five on a Treasure Island, was published in 1942....
- The Adventure series
The Adventure Series by Enid Blyton, a prolific English children's author, is a series of eight children's novels. These books feature the same child characters: Philip, Jack, Dinah, and Lucy-Ann, along with several adult characters...
- The Noddy books
- The Secret Seven series
The Secret Seven or "Secret Seven Society" are a fictional group of child detectives created by Enid Blyton. They appear in one of several juvenile detective series Blyton wrote....
- The Malory Towers series
Malory Towers is a series of six novels by British children's author Enid Blyton, featuring the fictional Cornish seaside boarding school of the same name...
- The St. Clare's series
St. Clare's is a series of six books written by English children's author Enid Blyton about a boarding school of that name. The series follows the heroines Patricia "Pat" and Isabel O'Sullivan from their first year at St. Clare's on...
- The Wishing-Chair series
- The Magic Faraway Tree series
- The Barney Mystery series
The Barney Mysteries were a series of six children's books written by British author Enid Blyton. They are also sometimes known as the "R" mysteries, because each title involves a word beginning with R....
- The Circus series
- The Mistletoes Farm series
- The Naughtiest Girl series
- The Young Adventurers Series
- The Adventurous Four Series
- The Family Series
- The Family Adventure Series
- The Secret Series
The Secret Series is a series of books written by Enid Blyton. Jack, Peggy, Nora and Mike are four children who, in their first adventure together, run away from strict guardians after their parents are thought to have been killed in a plane crash...
- Five Run Away Together
Five Run Away Together is the third book in the Famous Five series by the British author Enid Blyton.-Plot:Julian, Dick and Anne arrive in Cornwall to stay with George for the holidays. They plan to spend time exploring Kirrin Island but their happiness is spoilt when Aunt Fanny falls ill and has...
Other works
Blyton wrote hundreds of other books for young and older children: novels, story collections and some non-fiction. 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.
Such prolific output led many to believe that some of her work was ghost-written, but as yet, no ghost writers have come forward. Major structural differences support the ghost-writing theory, including discrepancies as to the distance between George's and her cousin's homes (1 day car ride vs 1 hour bike ride) in the Famous Five series. 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 BunyanJohn Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...
's
Pilgrim's Progress, with modern children as the central characters. She also produced retellings of
Old TestamentThe Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
and
New TestamentThe New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
stories.
Enid Blyton was a prolific author of short stories. These were first published, for the most part, in
Sunny Stories, an Enid Blyton magazine, or other children's papers.
She also used to explore the forests when she was a little girl and wrote of her dreams in a notebook kept by her bedside.
In February 2011, the manuscript of a previously unknown Blyton novel,
Mr Tumpy's Caravan, was discovered in a collection of her papers which had been auctioned in 2010 following the death of her elder daughter in 2007.
Subject matter
Enid Blyton's books often mirrored the fantasies of younger children. Children are free to play and explore without adult interference, more clearly than in most authors before or since — although the children in
E. NesbitEdith Nesbit was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television...
's turn of the century works, and those in the
Swallows and Amazons series (mostly 1930s) were equally independent. Adult characters are usually either authority figures (such as policemen, teachers, or parents) or adversaries to be conquered by the children. Children are self-sufficient, spending days away from home. This theme is taken to its extreme in two books:
Five Run Away TogetherFive Run Away Together is the third book in the Famous Five series by the British author Enid Blyton.-Plot:Julian, Dick and Anne arrive in Cornwall to stay with George for the holidays. They plan to spend time exploring Kirrin Island but their happiness is spoilt when Aunt Fanny falls ill and has...
and
The Secret Island: 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 FiveThe Famous Five is the name of a series of children's novels written by British author Enid Blyton. The first book, Five on a Treasure Island, was published in 1942....
and
Secret SevenThe Secret Seven or "Secret Seven Society" are a fictional group of child detectives created by Enid Blyton. They appear in one of several juvenile detective series Blyton wrote....
, and the
AdventureThe Adventure Series by Enid Blyton, a prolific English children's author, is a series of eight children's novels. These books feature the same child characters: Philip, Jack, Dinah, and Lucy-Ann, along with several adult characters...
series.
The second and more conventional type is the boarding school story; the plots of these have more emphasis on the day-to-day life at school. This is the world of the midnight feast, the practical joke, and the social interaction of the various types of character. Examples of this type are the
Malory Towers stories, the
St Clare's series, and the
Naughtiest Girl books and are typical of the times — many comics of the day, for instance, also contained similar types of story.
The third type is the fantastical. Children are typically transported into a magical world in which they meet fairies, goblins, elves,pixies, or other fantasy creatures. Examples of this type are the
Wishing-Chair books and
The Faraway TreeThe Faraway Tree is a series of popular novels for children by British author Enid Blyton. The titles in the series are The Enchanted Wood , The Magic Faraway Tree , The Folk of the Faraway Tree and Up the Faraway Tree .The stories take place in an enchanted forest in which a gigantic magical...
. Alternatively, in many of her short stories, toys are shown to come alive when humans are not around.
Controversies and revisions
Blyton's status as a bestselling author is in spite of disapproval of her works from various perspectives, which has led to altered reprints of the books and withdrawals or “bans” from libraries. In the 1990s, Chorion, the owners of Blyton's works, edited her books to remove passages that were deemed racist or sexist. The children’s author
Anne FineAnne Fine, OBE FRSL is a British author best known for her children's books, of which she has written more than 50. She also writes for adults...
presented an overview of the concerns about Blyton's work and responses to them on
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
in November 2008, in which she noted the “drip, drip, drip of disapproval” associated with the books.
"Blyton bans"
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 BaumLyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
's
Oz books (and the many sequels by others) by librarians in the United States in the 1930s. There were numerous critical comments about Blyton: claiming that her vocabulary was too limited, that she presented too rosy a view of the world, even suggestions that little Noddy's relationship with Big Ears was "suspect", that he was a poor role model for boys because he sometimes wept when frustrated and the laws were politically incorrect.
A 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 fictionIn popular culture, formula fiction is literature in which the storylines and plots have been reused to the extent that the narratives are predictable. It is similar to genre fiction, which identifies a number of specific settings that are frequently reused...
, 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. Her response is said to be that she was not interested in the views of critics aged over 12.
BBC bans
In November 2009 it was revealed in the British press that the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
had a longstanding ban on dramatising Blyton's books on the radio from the 1930s to the 1950s. Letters and memos from the BBC Archive show that producers and executives at the time described Blyton as a "tenacious second-rater" who wrote "stilted and longwinded" books which were not suitable to be broadcast. In 1936 Blyton wrote to the BBC suggesting herself as a broadcaster, pointing out that she had "written probably more books than any other writer." She was turned down. In 1938, Blyton's husband, Hugh Pollock, wrote to
Sir John ReithJohn Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom...
, the then Director General of the BBC, pointing out that his wife was receiving letters from children from all parts of the
British EmpireThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, and that she should be allowed to speak to them via the radio. Jean E. Sutcliffe, of the BBC's schools broadcast department wrote, "Her stories...haven't much literary value. There is rather a lot of the Pink-winky-Doodle-doodle Dum-dumm type of name (and lots of pixies) in the original tales."
Blyton tried to get her work on the radio again in 1940, but her
manuscriptA manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
was once more turned down, the BBC employee who reviewed it writing, "This is really not good enough. Very little happens and the dialogue is so stilted and long-winded...It really is odd to think that this woman is a bestseller." Eventually, in 1954, Blyton's works appeared on air for the first time. Jean Sutcliffe wrote of Blyton's ability to churn out "mediocre material", and that "Her capacity to do so, amounts to genius...anyone else would have died of boredom long ago."
Michael RosenMichael Wayne Rosen is a broadcaster, children's novelist and poet and the author of 140 books. He was appointed as the fifth Children's Laureate in June 2007, succeeding Jacqueline Wilson, and held this honour until 2009....
, the former Children's Laureate, said of the BBC's ban on Blyton, "...the quality of the writing itself was poor...it was felt that there was a lot of snobbery and racism in the writing...There is all sorts of stuff about oiks and lower orders."
Dated attitudes and altered reprints
The books are very much of their time, particularly the titles published in the 1950s. They present the UK's class system — that is to say, "rough" versus "decent". Many of Blyton's children's books similarly reflected negative stereotypes regarding gender, race, and class.
One incidence of altering this type of dated material might be the altering of a statement like "black as a nigger with soot" appearing in
Five Go off to CampFive Go Off To Camp is the seventh novel in the Famous Five children's adventure series by Enid Blyton. It was first published in 1948, and was followed by a number of reprints and translations. The story evolves around mysterious "spook trains" that the Five hear about on a lonely moor...
. At the time, "
NegroThe word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
" was the standard formal term and "nigger" a relatively common colloquialism. This is one of the most obvious targets for alteration in modern reprints, along with the replacement of
golliwogsThe "Golliwogg" was a character in children's books in the late 19th century and depicted as a type of rag doll. It was reproduced, both by commercial and hobby toy-makers as a children's toy called the "golliwog", and had great popularity in North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and...
with teddy bears or goblins. Some of these responses by publishers to contemporary attitudes on racial stereotypes has itself drawn criticism from some who view it as tampering with an important piece of the history of children's literature. The Druce book brings up the case of
The Little Black Doll (who wanted to be pink), which was turned on its head in a reprint. Also removed in deference to modern ethical attitudes are many casual references to slaves and to corporal punishment - The Faraway Tree's
Dame Slap was changed to
Dame Snap and several references to characters in the
Malory TowersMalory Towers is a series of six novels by British children's author Enid Blyton, featuring the fictional Cornish seaside boarding school of the same name...
and St. Clare's series being spanked were changed to them being "scolded". Blyton's attitudes came under criticism during her working lifetime; a publisher rejected a story of hers in 1960, taking a negative literary view of it but also saying that "There is a faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia in the author's attitude to the thieves; they are 'foreign'...and this seems to be regarded as sufficient to explain their criminality."
Similarly, some have suggested the depictions of boys and girls in her books were sexist. For example, a 2005
GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
article suggested that the Famous Five depicts a power struggle between Julian, Dick and George (Georgina), with the female characters either acting like boys or being heavily put-upon. Although the issues are more subjective than with some of the racial issues, it has been suggested that a new edition of the book will "address" these issues through alterations, which has led to the expression of nostalgia for the books and their lack of
political correctnessPolitical correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
. In the Secret Seven books, the girls are deliberately excluded from tasks such as investigating the villains' hideouts — in
Go Ahead, Secret Seven, it is directly stated "'Certainly not,' said Peter, sounding very grown-up all of a sudden. 'This is a man's job, exploring that coal-hole'". In the Famous Five this is less often the case, but in
Five on a Hike TogetherFive on a Hike Together is the tenth novel in the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton. It was first published in 1951.In the book, two of Julian and Dick's school get a scholarship while Anne and George have a mid-term break-External links:**...
, Julian gives similar orders to George: "You may look like a boy and behave like a boy, but you're a girl all the same. And like it or not, girls have got to be taken care of."
Film
The story of Blyton's life was turned into a
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
film in 2009 with
Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
in the title role. Filming began in March 2009 and first aired in the United Kingdom on
BBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
on 16 November 2009, followed by a documentary on Enid Blyton.
Matthew MacfadyenDavid Matthew Macfadyen is an English actor, known for his role as MI5 intelligence officer Tom Quinn in the BBC television drama series Spooks and for starring as Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.In June, 2010 Macfadyen won a British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting...
and
Denis LawsonDenis Stamper Lawson is a Scottish actor and director. He is known for his roles as John Jarndyce in the BBC's adaptation of Bleak House and as Gordon Urquhart in the film Local Hero, but is best known for playing the part of Wedge Antilles in the original Star Wars trilogy.-Early life:Lawson was...
played Blyton's first husband, Hugh Pollock, and Blyton's second husband, Kenneth Darrell Waters, respectively.
Statistics
- Blyton's books have sold more than 600 million copies
- In the decade from 2000 she was still in the Top Ten authors, selling 7,910,758 copies worth £31.2m in the UK alone.
- More than a million Famous Five books are sold worldwide each year
- Her books have been translated into more than 90 different languages
- The Magic Faraway Tree was voted no. 66 in the BBC's Big Read
The Big Read was a survey on books carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, where over three quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel of all time...
..
- In the 2008 Costa Book Awards, Enid Blyton was voted the best-loved author, ahead of Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander...
, JK Rowling and Shakespeare
- 753 titles credited to her over a 45 year career with an average of 16 titles published per year
See also
- Enid Blyton Society
The Enid Blyton Society is an appreciation society for the author Enid Blyton.It was formed in 1995 .The call for material for the first Enid Blyton Society...
- Enid Blyton's illustrators
The children's books of Enid Blyton were illustrated by a large number of artists, ranging from figures known for other work to humbler commercial artists, who in some cases were anonymous...
Further reading
- 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
External links