Enid Mary Blyton was one of the world’s most prolific writers of children’s fiction, authoring over 600 kids books and selling over 600 million copies to date. None for writing in three distinct styles; adventure, boarding school and magical fantasy, Blyton’s books have been translated into 90 languages.
Despite the enduring popularity of her works, Blyton has been accused of fostering sexism, racism, xenophobia and elitism in her books. This criticism has led to several revisions of her classic tales over the years including the substituting of goblins for gollywogs in Noddy, removal of spankings in the Malory towers series and dropping of references to George’s short hair making her look like a boy in the Famous Five series. Recently, locals protested at the possibility of holding a Blyton festival in her home town because of the various outraged stereotypes expressed in her stories.
But surely Enid Blyton, the self described guardian of our children’s morals would not set out intentionally to upset her beloved legions of fans?
Enid Blyton was born in 1897 and wrote her 600 books between 1922 and 1968. The opinions she conveyed through her characters were not unusual or radically conservative for a middle class lady living during this period. In fact, it would be hard to find cold malice in Blyton’s descriptions when viewing her words and ideas as symptoms of her time rather than a particular political view.
If we are to lambaste Blyton for this then we must also re-examine our relationship with some other classic authors. HP Lovecraft and Joseph Conrad appear racist to us. Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charlotte Bronte and dozens of other classic writers could be labelled sexist. So is it right to judge Enid Blyton on the prevalent attitudes of her age while ignoring the utterly wonderful stories she created during four frantic decades of work?
My great aunt Rita Gulhooley is a closet racist. I mean she’s blatantly xenophobic and we lock her in the closet when decent company calls to visit. I asked her what she thought of Enid Blyton.
“That brazen hussey? I hate the ground she walks on.”
“Because of her controversial and sometimes inappropriate characters and situations?”
“No, because she’s a fecking protestant!”
Maybe we should judge Enid Blyton on what she does well – Right interesting and enduring children’s fiction. Blyton published her first book in 1922, a book of Poetry called ‘Child Whispers’. Her early work was more poetry than anything else but soon Blyton turned her arm to writing children’s stories, releasing what many believe to be her greatest work in 1926, The Enid Blyton book of Brownies. The story of three naughty brownies: Hop, Skip and Jump, who are tricked by Witch Green-eyes into helping her to kidnap the Princess Peronel and are then banished from Fairyland until they find their 'Goodness', became an instant hit with children and cemented Blyton as a favourite author with kids across the world.
In 1934 Blyton began her Old Thatch series following the adventures of Brer Rabbit. This was followed in 1937 with the start of successful Wishing Chair series and the beginning of the Secret Series in 1938 and the Amelia Jane and Faraway Tree series in 1939. Her habit of writing ten thousand words a day helped Blyton pump books out at an incredible rate.
The Naughtiest Girl series began in 1940 with The Naughtiest Girl in School. The four book series was set at a progressive boarding school in England and followed the adventures of Elizabeth Allen, a very spoiled girl who is determined to behave so badly that she will be expelled from Whyteleafe School. In many ways this book created a new formula for Blyton which would be recreated in the Malory Towers and St Clare's series and even influenced the more successful Famous Five and Secret Seven series. Six further books were added to this series by Anne Digby sixty years later.
The Adventurous Four and the St Clare’s series were both launched in 1941. The Adventurous Four revolves around twins Jill and Mary, their elder brother Tom and their fisher friend Andy. Set in Scotland during World War 2, these stories certainly seem like a prototype for the famous five.
The Famous Five series debuted the following year. Blyton’s most popular set of stories feature the adventures of a group of young children – Julian, Dick, Anne and Georgina (George) – and George's dog Timmy. Blyton wrote twenty one books in this series, from ‘Five on Treasure Island’ in 1942 to ‘Five are together again’ in 1963. By the end of 1953 more than six million copies had been sold. Today, more than two million copies of the books are sold each year, making them one of the biggest-selling series for children ever written, with sales totalling over a hundred million.
The Malory Towers series was birthed in 1946 with ‘First Term at Malory Towers’. The series follows the protagonist, Darrell Rivers on her adventures and experiences in boarding school over the course of six novels with six more being added by Pamela Cox in 2009. The girls' boarding school was based on Benenden School that Blyton's daughter attended.
The Secret Seven series was added to Blyton’s incredible stable in 1949 with the release of ‘The Secret Seven’. The Secret Seven Society consists of Peter (the society's head), Janet (Peter's Sister), Jack, Barbara, George, Pam and Colin. The seven would appear in seven short stories and fifteen novels, but would always be in the shadow of the more successful Famous Five.
It was also in 1949 that Blyton created one of her most iconic characters, Noddy. Noddy was created by a woodcarver but ran away when he created a wooden Lion. Running through the woods scared he met a friendly Brownie called Big Ears who took him to live in the magical Toyland. Incredible this simple premise became a huge hit with children, spawning twenty four books, nine tv series and a theatre production.
Enid Blyton viewed herself as the moral guardian of her legions of child readers but at times her attempts to be altruistic through her readers seemed off, such as when she suggested (very politically incorrect) that children should help other children and animals but not adults. “[children] are not interested in helping adults; indeed, they think that adults themselves should tackle adult needs. But they are intensely interested in animals and other children and feel compassion for the blind boys and girls, and for the spastics who are unable to walk or talk.”
Despite her now being viewed as an overtly conservative author, Blyton was known to enjoy playing tennis in the nude, something that was apparently common among the middle class English of the time.
In 1963, Blyton wrapped up her Famous Five and Secret Seven series. Unknown to anyone outside her closest circle, the profiling author was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and from this time until her death would write only short pieces. She died at the Greenways Nursing Home, Hampstead, North London, on 28 November 1968, aged 71.
Part of the revisionism concerning Blyton may lay with her daughter Imogen’s autobiography where she described her mother as "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." This was a view not shared by her sister however.
Today Blyton’s stories still capture children’s imaginations and, half a century after her death, she’s still outselling JK Rowling and Roald Dahl. Her books have been made available in 3,544 translations. In 2008 the Costa Book Award named Blyton the nation’s best-loved author in a poll of 2000 adults.
Maybe Enid Blyton was a victim of her own success in the end. She once wrote, “Hatred is so much easier to win than love - and so much harder to get rid of.” In the end, that might be the most accurate epitaph to one of Children’s Literatures greatest heroes.
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