Enid Blyton Teaching Prints

[insanedoh]

Hi Again

I'm trying to "collect them all" the enid blyton teaching prints (posters) which came out by illustrators : Eileen Soper, KATHLEEN NIXON, ERNEST ARIS, RAYMOND SHEPHARD et al. I think there is one large set of ~84 and also the old & new testament sets, but! I think there may be other small sets that i'm confusing my big set with. (I have yet to completely correlate all the posters / numbers that I have) but I was wondering is there a definitive listing of the numbers / descriptions and the sets somewhere? The artwork is just beautiful i want to frame some of them, but I just won't be able to decide which ones! they're all lovely

Thanks again for your help

-Carly

[Daisy]

What a lovely ambition Carly! I have 2 of the prints from the Nature Readers which you can see in the Cave of Books. There are 36 readers and 72 prints. They come under the Education section. My 2 were bought from a second hand book dealer who had lots, including some of the biblical ones. I wish I could have afforded more. He was asking £5.00 each for them. They are quite large - 21"x17". I have framed one of mine and it hangs near my book shelves!
I hope you can track down many for your collection.

[insanedoh]

Thanks Daisy!

So are the poster pictures all inside the books as well?? (as book plates at book size!) I can see now there are pictures in the cave of books of the posters with the books. Are there 2 plates per book then? (or however many stories there are i guess!)

Yes it's not a very cheap ambition! I'm in Australia so there's also postage out there too (unfortunately don't find many in stores here (or any for that matter!)

[Daisy]

I think the posters came separately as they aren't folded. They are beautiful. I wondered where you were - yes postage to Australia from UK would be considerable I expect. I suppose ebay and other world wide sites would be your easiest option (if easiest is the right word!). Good luck!

[Anita Bensoussane]

The set of 84 posters (by various artists including Ernest Aris and Raymond Sheppard) accompanied the 4-volume Two Years in the Infant School.

[insanedoh]

Thanks Daisy, yes they definitely couldn't fold into the book! Ebay is great, i'll just have to go through all my posters now and re-callibrate them!

Anita: Thanks, yes that's the other ones!! i'll see if i can compile a list of them too, i think the numbering doesn't match the numbers in the stories.

Will try and get hold of the books (not sure how easy or cheap that is!) Then I should really be able to make a big list The numbering for the infant ones doesn't seem to correspond to the chapters in the books (over 4 volumes there's more stories than posters!) Once i've got some sort of list going i'll post it up incase anyone else can use it too

I found the reference books to the old/new testament & nature prints and i've purchase those, so just need to wait for them to arrive! Will try and get all the nature books as well, not sure how easy that will be though, probably a bit expensive..

[Tony Summerfield]

What a lovely ambition Carly! I have 2 of the prints from the Nature Readers which you can see in the Cave of Books. There are 36 readers and 72 prints. They come under the Education section. My 2 were bought from a second hand book dealer who had lots, including some of the biblical ones. I wish I could have afforded more. He was asking £5.00 each for them. They are quite large - 21"x17". I have framed one of mine and it hangs near my book shelves!
I hope you can track down many for your collection.

There are only 60 Nature Plates, Daisy, the last six books were an afterthought that were published several years after the earlier ones and they didn't have any plates to go with them.

[Tony Summerfield]

The set of 84 posters (by various artists including Ernest Aris and Raymond Sheppard) accompanied the 4-volume Two Years in the Infant School.

Someone very kindly offered to send me pics of these 84 posters (one for each topic), but they are difficult to get square on in a photo and I think she got bored after sending me two! They are both available in the Cave, the number refers to the topic number.

[Daisy]

Thank you for the correction Tony. I just jumped to the conclusion there were 2 per book.

[Aussie Sue]

Hi Carly

I live in Adelaide and have most of these sets in their original large wallets and would love to show them to you. Any chance you live in SA?

One thing you need to be aware of when ordering these from overseas, you can be charged duty as they are considered prints and artwork has a high duty. When I bought the first set I was not aware of this and after the cost of purchase and postage I was shocked at the high amount I had to pay to customs before they could be delivered.

Sue Bell of http://www.greenmeadowbooks.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has sets of these posters for sale. Sue is a delight to deal with and I'm sure she'd love to hear from you.

The set of 84 posters (by various artists including Ernest Aris and Raymond Sheppard) accompanied the 4-volume Two Years in the Infant School.

Someone very kindly offered to send me pics of these 84 posters (one for each topic), but they are difficult to get square on in a photo and I think she got bored after sending me two! They are both available in the Cave, the number refers to the topic number.

Tony, I will get my husband to photograph the Infant School set and email them to you as soon as I can.

cheers
Aussie Sue

[Timmy-the-dog]

Hi there.
I agree with everyone that the Nature Plates are fantastic. Anyone know what happened to the originals?
The Nature plates 1 - 60 follow the Nature Readers - 2 stories per book as already mentioned.
Enid also produced "Stories and notes to Enid Blyton Nature Plates" a green cloth bound book which included notes for teachers. As well as this there is a much more "in-depth" study book called "Reference book to Enid Blyton Nature Readers" by L J F Brimble, with a foreword by Enid Blyton. Both books were published in 1949, I think!
cheers
Timmy

[Aussie Sue]

Hi Timmy,

Yes the complete nature set is wonderful - posters, readers, and teachers guides. Reading the readers and looking at the posters that go with them is lovely. Amazing there is so much criticism of Enids work when so many children, learnt to read and understand nature with these gorgeous readers and posters. Every junior classroom should still have them.

cheers
Aussie Sue

[insanedoh]

Thanks everyone! so many replies!!

Aussie Sue: Hi & thanks very much! Unfortunately i'm in Melbourne so a bit far to have a look see! I have contacted Sue @ Greenmeadows to ask about the prints (couldn't see them on her site, but maybe i wasn't searching the right keywords! (bible ones are on abe though) - She has the nature box set though for the books). Have bought a few artworks including the posters from UK, but haven't found any customs duties "yet" *touch wood!* even though they are being declared as "art" maybe it depends on the $$ amount? do they still fall under the $1000 gst free? (or art is separate?) I really hope the government doesn't start putting a tax on under $1k from o/s to be more competitive for local business.. i do buy a lot from local business, but some things you just can't get here! (ie: elinor brent dyer books are extra scarce in Aus!) And agreed! They should still use them! they're beautiful pictures & i'm sure really great teaching aids.

Thanks Timmy, have added those books into my list and yes would be wonderful to see the originals, they would be stunning!

Thanks Tony for the correction on the numbering! So I've got this summery list:

Nature prints: 1 - 60 : correlating with each book (60 books + 6 additional with no plates) - small brown text - all by eileen soper?
infant school: 1 - 84 : correlating with each topic from the books (4 volumes) - large blue text (various illustrator including Kathleen Nixon, Ernest Aris and Raymond Sheppard)
new testament: 1 - 30 : (unnumbered)
old testament: 1 - 30

and these reference books:
Reference Book To Enid Blyton Nature Readers
Stories and notes to Enid Blyton Nature Plates
Reference Book to Enid Blyton New Testament Bible
Reference Book to Old Testament Bible Plates
<no separate reference book for the infant school ones)

i've got a couple more questions! Looking on ABE there are quite a few of the infant school books which say first edition 1936. and the green meadows one says "A wealth of content. All loose leaved, and in original boxes." So was this 1936 version unbound?? (cave of books says 1938 unless I've missed it somewhere else??)
The originals then are the blues still? (i noticed some have maroon cover, but i think that is later versions?)

Thanks again everyone! Really appreciate all the replies.

-Carly

[Tony Summerfield]

In my bibliography I put them under 1938 with an asterisk against them, meaning that they were undated and not recorded in reference books of the time, such as The English Catalogue of Books or Whitaker's Cumulative Book List - I always double-checked every book. The website doesn't allow such luxury, if something isn't given a date it doesn't get on! It is possible that they weren't catalogued as they aren't actually books, they are boxed files containing the loose leaved topics. The purpose of this was undoubtedly so that they could be used as worksheets in schools. I have seen bound versions, bound in red cloth, but I have never been quite sure if they were issued like this or privately bound for the benefit of a teacher.

Any new academic work from Enid Blyton always had an advertisement in Teachers World when it first came out, and the first advertisement for this publication was in Teachers World No. 1812 on February 16th 1938. This would seem to back up my dating and I am not sure where the 1936 date came from.

[Tony Summerfield]

Tony, I will get my husband to photograph the Infant School set and email them to you as soon as I can.

cheers
Aussie Sue

That would be fantastic if you can do that, Sue, it would be really great to have them pictured in the Cave. The two pics that are there aren't even very good! I know how difficult it is to get them square on as I did the 60 nature plates myself and some of them could have been a bit better, I only gave myself a 'C -' and that was mostly for effort!

I do have all the Bible plates as well, but these were actually issued by Macmillan in book form, unlike the nature plates. I therefore haven't hurried to put them on the website, but they will get there eventually.

It would also be great at some stage in the future to get the Australian publications, Chuckler's Weekly and Woman's Day into the Periodical section, but I simply don't have enough details in my records, particularly of Woman's Day and I only have a few copies of each publication. I would need help from Australia!