Price of David Rudd's book.

[MJE]

Hallo.

     I found a copy of David Rudd's book "Enid Blyton and the Mystery of Children's Literature" on eBay - and it is being offered for $244.
     This reminded me that there are a number of books about Enid Blyton that I don't have that I sort of had it in mind to find some time, and this was one of them.
     But is this a reasonable price to pay? Is it that rare that it is normally at this price or similar? If I want to get this book, should I just stump up and pay (even if it hurts rather), or wait for a cheaper copy to come up some time? How rare is the book anyway?
     I would appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks.

Regards, Michael.

[Aussie Sue]

Michael, It took me ages to find a copy at all and I had to pay $200 for mine. I assume it wasn't a very large print run so will always be difficult to find and so quite expensive. But I think it is well worth having.

cheers
Sue

[Courtenay]

Hello Michael,

I've found David Rudd's book tends to be expensive too. I have no real idea why.

I did buy it myself some years ago when I managed to find it at what I decided was an "acceptable" price. Unfortunately I can't remember what that was and don't seem to have kept a record of it! I think it was somewhere between £60 and £80 — definitely under £100. ($244 — assuming that's Australian dollars — is about £135.50 at the current exchange rate.)

I can only guess it's so expensive because it's never been republished and there are obviously enough people looking for it to make sellers feel they can sell it at those kinds of prices. I can't say for sure how much it's worth it, as I must admit I still haven't got around to reading the book!! But I heard David Rudd give a talk on Enid Blyton once — explaining what's special and memorable about her writing style and why she's still so popular, and effectively rebutting a whole lot of the usual criticisms about her (sexist, racist, repetitive, over-simplistic etc.) — and I really appreciated and enjoyed what he had to say, so I trust that his book is worth reading. I will definitely get to it some day...

If you want to know more about the kinds of things Rudd has to say about Blyton, I wrote a review of his talk in the EBS Journal — issue 56, Spring 2015, if you've got it on hand. Tony might also be able to give you more information about David Rudd and his book, as I believe he's also been to one or more Enid Blyton Days.

[db105]

For used books, I'd advice you to look in abebooks. I'm seeing copies of the book you seek for about £75 there:
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Sear ... Literature" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Barnard]

Amazon has used copies of David Rudd’s book for £75.00 and new copies for £109.00.

[Tony Summerfield]

I am very much against publishers slapping ridiculous prices on books just because they can call it 'academic'. David's book cost over £60 when it was published and at that price few people are going to buy it and I would guess it had a small print run. I have known David for over 25 years and he did some research down here at my house and he very kindly gave me a signed copy of his book. Macmillan also sent me a copy which I gave to someone as a present.

Funnily enough I have mentioned another 'high flyer' in the next Journal. I don't know the author but he sent me an email the day before the book was published. This time I am not likely to get a copy, let alone two and at that price I won't be buying one either. No need to wait until the Journal I will let you see it now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reading-Enid-B ... filtered=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Fiona1986]

I'd seen that new one on Amazon before Christmas, Tony. Either I didn't look at the price or it had been put in lower by mistake as I sent Ewan a link suggesting it for my Christmas. He was shocked at the price and I had to hurriedly say 'No, OK, I don't want it THAT much!'

[Courtenay]

I am very much against publishers slapping ridiculous prices on books just because they can call it 'academic'. David's book cost over £60 when it was published and at that price few people are going to buy it and I would guess it had a small print run. I have known David for over 25 years and he did some research down here at my house and he very kindly gave me a signed copy of his book. Macmillan also sent me a copy which I gave to someone as a present.

Hmmm, well, that explains it still being so expensive now! I agree, that's a ridiculous price even for a new book, let alone second hand.

[Katharine]

I was lucky enough to be able to borrow this book from a library last year. It was very interesting, and obviously the result of a lot of hard work, but personally I wouldn't be prepared to pay more than about £10 - £12 for it.

At the end of the day though, a book is only really worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. I wouldn't have paid £60 for David's book even when it was new, but I'd possibly consider paying that much for the birthday card booklet that was featured in another thread.

Michael, I hope you do manage to get yourself a copy of David Rudd's book, whether it's the one you are currently considering, or another one at some point.

[Jomo]

Those who have read David Rudd’s book, what do you think of it? What are the main points? What new perspectives does he explore? I’m thinking of getting it on an inter library loan.

I note he’s written quite a few books on Children’s Literature and I found this review / summary of ‘Reading the Child in Children’s Literature: An Heretical Approach’ by David Rudd
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... David_Rudd
There are many other reviews of the above book, mostly academic.

And this review of The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature edited by David Rudd.

Readers, like myself and, I expect, most of the readers of Mythprint, who are more interested in children’s literature than in its criticism, and who pick up this book in order to learn something about children’s literature, will be disappointed. Except in the timeline, the texts discussed were chosen in order to illustrate aspects of critical methods. Preference seems to have been given to texts that are familiar to current college students….

https://cs.nyu.edu/~davise/papers/routledge.pdf

[Katharine]

I borrowed this book 2 years ago. I found the first chapter quite difficult to get through, as I felt it very academic (which obviously it is), but after that I really enjoyed it. I wish I had a copy of my own as I would love to be able to dip back into it from time to time to double check facts and figures.

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's some years since I read it but David Rudd's Enid Blyton and the Mystery of Children's Literature takes an academic look at criticisms of Enid Blyton across the decades and at how her work is perceived in 2000 (the year the book was published). It concentrates on Noddy, the Famous Five and Malory Towers. David examines the way children engage with the texts, discusses Enid Blyton as a cultural icon and storyteller in the oral tradition, looks at accusations of sexism and racism and explores psychoanalytical aspects.

There's a thread about the book here:

viewtopic.php?p=19291#p19291

[Jomo]

I did a little internet search and found an interesting underlying connection between Enid and David Rudd:

Additional information
Dr David Rudd is a former Professor of Children’s Literature and Director of the NCRCL (National Centre for Research into Children’s Literature) at the University of Roehampton. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Bolton, where he first introduced Children’s Literature courses in the 1990s. He has published around 100 articles and 3 monographs on children’s literature—most recently, Reading the Child in Children’s Literature (2013). He also edited The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature (2010). He was editor-in-chief of the journal Children’s Literature in Education until spring 2018.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 018-9371-9

Roehampton is of course the university that has inherited Froebelian education David Rudd cannot help being more broadly and deeply informed and possibly quite invested in Enid Blyton’s work - hence his articles and books with a fresh and fair perspective in contrast to the poorly informed and narrowcast views of many others in academia.

[Fiona1986]

I just bought a copy on Abebooks for £37 odds, including postage. Seems like a bargain but there are two ex-library copies on there from the same seller, and having bought one the listing hasn't disappeared. Hope it's genuine and I won't get a 'sorry out of stock' email later.

[Fiona1986]

As for the Reading Enid Blyton that Tony mentioned above, there's now a Kindle version for £9.99 which I may end up getting.