Recently I glanced over an attractive array of Blyton memorabilia with pictures that reeked of colour and familiarity as most displays of EB material would - and to prove this claim simply open up your copy of 'The Enid Blyton Dossier.'
The list of books and single pictures was a 'Dedication to illustrators and designers of all kinds' and this particular section deals with an artist named 'E. H. Davie.' Odd discussions on the forum speculate as to whether E. H. Davie was a he or a she, and this contributor's spiel is as follows:
"Another discovery of Daniela is this illustrator of the last century: EHDavie, of which there is nothing on the net, except that she also illustrated some books by Enid Blyton."
Perhaps there's just a tendency to imagine the artist as female by some, and a male by others. Not that it matters because the real mystery as to why I'd always thought of the illustrator as being 'male' had to be analysed.
The first books I read containing 'E. H. Davie' pictures would have been 'The Secret of Spiggy Holes,' 'The Adventurous Four,' and 'Mr. Galliano's Circus.'
'Spiggy Holes' was probably the initial bestseller perused and it merited many re-reads, but the artist didn't appear to be credited. There was just 'E. H. Davie' perceived on various illustrations.
'Adventurous Four' and 'Galliano' had the proper accreditation so the thought that E.H.Davie was a male must have come from those two books and it wasn't difficult to see why. I was about nine or ten when reading them for the first time and seeing 'Someone Davie' as the illustrator automatically conveyed to my non-discriminating mind that E. H. Davie was a man - 'Davie' being the critical factor.
In fact, like many others, I had even defined Enid Blyton as a 'man,' because in those days men did everything whilst women stayed at home and made the beds. Also, having never come across the name 'Enid' before, I had attached it to the male gender.
Curiously, the very latest spiel on the above-named list has a slight wording change:
"Another discovery is that of Daniela illustrator of the last century: EHDavie, that you do not find anything on the net, except that she has also illustrated several books of Enid Blyton."
This marginally altered version lacks a little flow.
The pictures, if they're all meant to have come from E. H. Davie's hand, seem to include a few errors. Many illustrators are recognisable by their work alone but earlier renditions of any particular artist could task the brain a little; in the examples is a depiction of Peter falling over a bush with Chinky and Mollie (holding a cat) running alongside. I can't find that picture anywhere in the first 'Wishing chair' volume and I don't think it'd be in the second, so perhaps they're from one of the Sunny Stories mags that serialised the novel. To my mind, Hilda McGavin has always been the illustrator for those characters and although her art in the second book seems slightly different in approach from the first (if you care to look), it's her all right because the name's there. Considering the fact that illustrators' styles change over the years, maybe E. H. Davie 'did' draw some of the pictures that don't look at all like the ones we know.
An example of minute alterations in artistry can be found if you glance at his images in a 1937 Sunny Stories magazine for 'Horrid Little Boy.' The delineations look a little different in technique from those adorning Blyton stories in later years.
It'd be nice to see a family photograph dragged up from some corner of the planet.
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