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Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 09:56
by Anita Bensoussane
sixret wrote:There are two obvious signs to prove it!
Are you thinking of the headed notepaper and the faded ink, Sixret? I agree that the letter looks genuine.
Daisy wrote:Does the date on the letter have any significance I wonder?
I didn't spot that!
Courtenay wrote:I remember Tony saying elsewhere that Enid almost always wrote "Love from Enid Blyton" when she signed a book — so if it says anything other than "love from", as this does, it's almost certainly a fake.
I think Tony just said it's unusual to see a signature on its own:
Tony Summerfield wrote:It is also very unusual to just have a signature as she normally put 'love from', but whilst the signature is well known and fairly easy to copy, that part isn't and it is very difficult to get it right.
The letter shows that Enid Blyton didn't always write "Love from", as it says "Yours with best wishes".
Sadly, by 1964 Enid Blyton wasn't able to write "plenty more" books as she promises.
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 10:41
by Tony Summerfield
Sorry to disagree with the experts here, but I think that both the signatures are genuine.
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 10:46
by Courtenay
Even the one with the strange B in "Best wishes"??
I know you're the best judge, Tony — just wondering what in particular gives that first one away as genuine in your view.
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 10:58
by pete9012S
Many thanks for everyone's comments.
Here's two more signatures for comparison with the same salutation.
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 11:58
by Rob Houghton
I'm glad Tony said that! I didn't want to be blasted down, as everyone else was saying the signature was a fake, but even despite the strange 'B' I felt that everything else (especially the 'wishes') was very much Blyton's style. I have one signed book by EB - from a guy who advertised on here a while back - and it says 'Love From Enid Blyton' - but I've also seen 'Best Wishes' quite often too.
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 13:03
by IceMaiden
I did wonder about the letter as it does look real but like others I wasn't sure about the book due to the 'B'. Having said that, how can you say something isn't genuine due to one letter? I don't write letters in exactly the same way all the time but it's still my writing
. I might bid on the book now if it doesn't go too high
.
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 14:23
by sixret
Anita Bensoussane wrote:
sixret wrote:There are two obvious signs to prove it!
Are you thinking of the headed notepaper and the faded ink, Sixret? I agree that the letter looks genuine.
I used zooming to make it clearer. The ink at end of each stroke should be bolder. But there are two or three instances where the bolder ink in the middle of letter's stroke. Secondly, by 1964 her dimentia must have been getting worse. Even if she still could write a coherent letter, she wouldn't. I derived my conclusion based on these. But Tony should know better!
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 14:34
by Anita Bensoussane
An interesting observation, but it's possible for ink to fade unevenly because different parts of the nib are used for different strokes and you may get strokes which are bolder/fainter. Enid Blyton herself might even have gone over some parts which she felt weren't as legible, before sending the letter.
I'm not certain, but I think a few other Enid Blyton letters from around that date exist and they're also perfectly coherent.
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 14:35
by sixret
Thanks for the info, Anita. You are in a position to know better than me.
Re: Signed by Enid? Not convinced!
Posted: 08 Oct 2016, 14:44
by Anita Bensoussane
I'm only guessing about the ink, but there has been some discussion of letters which Enid Blyton wrote towards the end of her life. I've just found this comment that Tony once made when we were talking about whether Enid's dementia could have been Alzheimer's:
Tony Summerfield wrote:Having carefully studied the evidence from a number of sources, I formed my own opinion a number of years ago that it was unlikely that Enid Blyton suffered from Alzheimer’s. I remember writing this in an article in the Journal some years ago but sadly my memory isn’t sufficiently good to remember which article it was. Shortly after this I received a letter from one of our readers. She was a nurse who specialised in looking after patients with Alzheimer’s. She said that in her opinion many of the things that Enid did in her last few years would have been completely impossible for a person in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s to do. Nobody disputes that Enid had a severe form of dementia, but it is also well recorded that she also had plenty of lucid moments alongside her forgetful ones.
I have a copy of a letter that Enid wrote in December 1967. She thanks somebody for a Christmas card and goes onto say how sad it was to have just spent her first Christmas at Green Hedges without Kenneth who had died earlier that year. It is a perfectly coherent letter although the writing is not as neat as it once was.
