The Enid Blyton Society

Tony Summerfield wrote:I have put an illustration in the next Journal which I am most unsure about - I haven't said anything about it at all as I was waiting for readers' reactions on it. I might then say a bit about it.

Very intriguing!

The Joyce A Johnson artwork is beautiful. We;ll done on acquiring it Tony. I too will be intrigued to see what artwork is coming up in the Journal.

I have to confess I'm not a big fan of the Joyce Johnson cover. It's okay - colourful, and nicely drawn, but I find it a bit flat...and I dislike the position of the girls arm, which looks completely wrong to me. Saying that, I'd love to own any original piece of artwork associated with Blyton - my favourites being Grace Lodge, Beek, Lilian Buchanan or Derek Lucas.

Book eleven Five Have A Wonderful Time now added to the list:


11. Five Have A Wonderful Time - Betty Maxey Illustrations (1968) Plus other alternative covers:
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Thanks, Pete. I think the Five Have a Wonderful Time illustrations are among Betty Maxey's best - I remember them well from childhood. The pictures of Jo and Beauty are smashing and the cover is just stunning. I wonder how much the cover artwork sold for in the end?

It's been a while, guys. I'm really glad that new scans keep coming! You're as awesome as ever Pete.

Hi Escanor! Nice to see you.



I've been trying to do the scans for book 14.Five Have Plenty of Fun, but have been having trouble buying a copy with the wonderful Betty Maxey internals!

I'm sorry if this has already been answered.
I'm looking for Maxey illustrations, and unlike Pete it needn't be books with Maxey covers. If I purchase books with covers of the 70s TV-series, can I be sure that they have internal illustrations done by Betty Maxey?

Yes, according to the Cave of Books all the paperbacks with the '70s TV series covers have the Maxey illustrations. We had a lot of them in those editions when I was little.

Thank you for your quick reply, Courtenay .

Hi Wolfgang, I know it was about a month ago now, but I can confirm I had (and still have) all the paperback TV Series covers and they have all got the Betty Maxey illustrations as shown in this thread.

Just come across this thread and loving looking back at the Betty Maxey images I remember so well from my childhood. As I grew up with these, these are more how I picture the five than Eileen Soper's. That is not to detract from Eileen's work which I agree should be the definitive illustrations, as she was the first illustrator, and her drawings are more detailed and better too. However, for my own personal preference, I have a soft spot for Betty's work. I feel the five are pictured more as their age of 11 to 13, whereas in Eileen's work, especially the first book, they look a lot younger. I also always picture Timmy as Betty's version, a bigger and stronger dog, but in Eileen's work (and the 1996 TV series), I always feel he doesn't look like much of a threat. But interesting to see both versions side by side, and I still prefer reading the original books now, as they have the original text, so slowly getting more used to the Eileen Soper illustrations.

Welcome, Kirrin_castle. I too like Betty Maxey as well as Eileen Soper. Maxey's internals (to borrow Pete's expression!) tend to be sketchy but the best of her drawings are flowing and elegant.

For me the strength of Betty Maxey's illustrations is the fact they are depicted as older, as you say. I always imagined them to be aged about 12, 13, 14 and 15 - in fact as a child I thought they were 'teen' books and so I didn't read many of them at the time!

And yet we are told that Julian is 12, George and Dick, 11 and Anne 10 in the first book, aren't we?