Was Enid Blyton a friend of other authors?

[Silky-Elf]

i am quiet sure that there were many, many children's authors during the time Enid Blyton lived. Was she a friend of any of them? Did she have any rivals and enemies in the writing world?

thanks!!
with my l0ve,
dina Blyton

[Lenoir]

I remember seeing a photo of Enid and Malcolm Saville and Richmal Crompton I think, so she had some famous friends

And according to this book site, there is a book for sale inscribed
'For my friend Enid Blyton, From Malcolm Saville'.

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/search/sortby ... on/sgnd/on (no. 5)

[Kitty]

Didn't she exchange letters with W E Johns? I guess that would mean that she knew him !

I have a very vague memory of reading somewhere that the classic girls authors Oxenham, Brent-Dyer and Fairlie Bruce (I think they all dedicated books to each other, and corresponded) didn't like Enid's school stories much? Though of course that certainly was not personal animosity, just a matter of taste! I wish I could remember where I read that, as I realise it isn't particularly informative or reliable without quotes or context.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I don't remember hearing of any very close friendships with other authors but Enid Blyton did interview A. A. Milne in 1926, author of Winnie-the-Pooh and children's verse. Her interview was published in Teachers' World.

Funnily enough, I just consulted Barbara Stoney's Biography to check the date of that interview and found that Enid Blyton also interviewed author Marion St. John Webb at around the same time. I'd never noticed that before, probably because the name Marion St. John Webb meant nothing to me. But last week I went to London and, in a little shop in Leicester Square, came across a modern paperback reprint (Wordsworth Classics) of a book called Knock Three Times! by that author. Intrigued by the title and the illustration on the cover of a girl walking through a wood, I bought it and started reading it a couple of days ago. It's about two children who have magical adventures in a wood at the bottom of their garden - adventures in which fairy-folk and a giant tree play a part. Knock Three Times! was originally published in the early 1900s (around 1917, I think?) and I was wondering whether Enid Blyton might have read it and been influenced by it when she wote her Faraway Tree series, though of course many of the elements it contains are also to be found in traditional fairy-tales, which were obviously drawn upon by both St. John Webb and Blyton.

I also seem to recall reading somewhere that Enid Blyton once met Alison Uttley, who made a snide remark about Blyton's writing. Enid apparently got her own back by commenting on the popularity of Uttley's "Peter Rabbit" books (which were of course by Beatrix Potter, Uttley's books being about "Little Grey Rabbit"!) Hope I've got that story right, as I've forgotten where I read it. Perhaps someone can correct me if I've got the details wrong or if it's just a myth or something!

Anita

[Kitty]

Ooh, I loved Knock Three Times! - it is surreal. If it is the one that I am thinking of - a maniac pumpkin plays a part, as I recall (and that's a batty sentence to have written if I've got my books muddled). I also love her book for older girls, The Girls of Chequertrees - it was Children's Press-d in the 50s/60s, so it is quite easy to find, though there might be cuts in it - my copy is an earlier edition - a Harrap, I think. A guaranteed weepy re-read for me.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, Knock Three Times! is about "a maniac pumpkin," Kitty! I'm about halfway through the book and it reminds me somewhat of some of Baum's "Wizard of Oz" stories.

[Kitty:] I also love her book for older girls, The Girls of Chequertrees - it was Children's Press-d in the 50s/60s, so it is quite easy to find, though there might be cuts in it - my copy is an earlier edition - a Harrap, I think. A guaranteed weepy re-read for me.

I've never heard of it but the title sounds very promising. Is it a family story? The title makes me think of Enid Blyton's The Family at Red-Roofs or The Children at Green Meadows, or Gwendoline Courtney's The Girls of Friar's Rise.

Anita

[Kitty]

I've never heard of it but the title sounds very promising. Is it a family story? The title makes me think of Enid Blyton's The Family at Red-Roofs or The Children at Green Meadows, or Gwendoline Courtney's The Girls of Friar's Rise.

Anita

It is a lovely book - a sort of very early experiment in "coming of age" young adult literature! Four girls in their late teens, from four very different walks of life, are asked to "house sit" for an elderly lady who will be in Scotland for the next six months. As long as they undertake not to try to find out what is in the mysterious locked room, and only write and receive one postcard from home per month, they'll be paid £50 at the end of the experiment. One of the storylines in particular reminds me of Enid's surprisingly compassionate views regarding a parent or husband who may have taken a "wrong turn" in life for understandable reasons. All the girls have very different personalities, as well as backgrounds (the least sympathetic being a real "Angela") but they all learn something from their time at Chequertrees - it is really quite moving.

[Tony Summerfield]

i am quiet sure that there were many, many children's authors during the time Enid Blyton lived. Was she a friend of any of them?
dina Blyton

As Enid's writing career lasted over many years I am sure in that time she met a number of other children's authors, but to the best of my knowledge she didn't know any other authors that well. Even the photo that Lenoir refers to with Malcolm Saville and Richmal Crompton was only a publicity photo, taken as all three wrote books for Newnes.

I think nowadays there are far more events which involve a number of children's authors and I should imagine that most prominent children's authors know a number of others fairly well.

I don't think that Enid even knew many of her illustrators all that well, in those days the publisher was responsible for getting the illustrators and I think Enid approved (or disapproved!) from a distance.

[Kate Mary]

Marion St John Webb is a very interesting writer. It's good to see "Knock three times" is back in print. She also wrote a series of nature fairy books (similar to the Flower Fairy books by Cicely Mary Barker) that were illustrated by Margaret Tarrant and I think they are still are, or were until recently, in print.

Anita, you are quite right that Enid Blyton met Alison Uttley, unfortunately, Alison mistook her for Enid Bagnold, author of "National Velvet", and asked her if she had written anything else, to which our Enid sniffily replied that the shops were full of her books. I hope I have remembered the story correctly, I think it was in the biography of Alison Uttley by Denis Judd which I read donkey's years ago.

Kate.

[Anita Bensoussane]

The Girls of Chequertrees sounds right up my street, Kitty. I'll have to try to get a copy.

Fancy Alison Uttley mistaking Enid Blyton for Enid Bagnold! I haven't seen the biography you mention, Kate Mary, but I read about the incident somewhere! The only Alison Uttley book I ever had as a child was A Traveller in Time, which I read after watching the 1970s TV series.

Discussing other authors reminds me of a book you once talked about in another thread, Kate Mary - Silver Snaffles. Do you know whether it has been reprinted by Fidra Books yet?

Anita

[Kate Mary]

"Silver Snaffles" is published at the end of October, Anita, and is at the top of my Christmas list! Whilst on the subject of Alison Uttley, try her autobiographical "A Country Child", it is a gentle, charming story of a imaginative, bookish child living on a Derbyshire farm at the end of the 19th century. Highly recommended.

Kate.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks for the recommendations. It's good to know that Silver Snaffles will be available so soon!

Anita

[Anita Bensoussane]

This thread inspired me to re-read Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time earlier this week and I enjoyed it. A gentle time-travel story, exquisitely-written and obviously well-researched. I hadn't realised that the book was first published as long ago as 1939!

To get back on topic, Hello! magazine dated 2nd November 1996 contains an interview with Gillian Baverstock in which Gillian is asked whether she ever met any distinguished people through her mother. She replies:

"Not particularly - she was a shy person. But I did meet Captain W. E. Johns, who wrote the Biggles books, and Richmal Crompton, the author of the Just William stories. And one or two people in the theatre. But it wasn't as if she was taking me to a different world. She wasn't in that world."

(Mmm - my daughter is busy baking crunchy biscuits with cherries and chocolate chips, and there's a lovely smell wafting my way!)

Anita

[Rob Houghton]

I used to love Alison Uttley's 'Little Grey Rabbit' books when I was a child, as I always used to borrow them from the library. They were probably my first real introduction to historical fiction, though I didnt know it at the time! They are set very much in the childhood of the author, as the preface to each book explains, and I used to love the 'old fashioned country' atmosphere the stories created.

The Grey Rabbit books form my second largest collection of children's books after 'our Enid' - I love Margaret Tempest's illustrations, too.

I also have 'a Traveller in Time', but found it very hard to 'get into' when I tried it. maybe I'll have another go...

[Belly]

In the Biography of Alison Uttley - A Country Child (or similar title don't have the book to hand) it is stated that Alison Uttley actively disliked Enid Blyton. So no Anita you were not imagining things! I think she thought she was intellectually a cut above and possibly was more than a bit jealous of her success. Alison Uttley did make money from her rabbit books etc but had to watch her pennies and certainly didn't have the financial success of Enid Blyton. (Just my thoughts and also what the biography suggests).

They both lived in Beaconsfield at the same time and knew each other apparently.

Alison Uttley is described almost as an unpleasant, capricious and highly complicated character (although very gifted having a science degree and also a flair for the arts). Apparently she often had school children knocking at her door asking to speak to her and she always gave them a warm reception (which rather goes against the grain from how she sounds as a person).

I imagine, if a child, you could get the bus to Beaconsfield in the 1940s or so and get lemonade and cookies at the houses of two famous authors if you played your cards right!

I wonder if any famous authors now live in Beconsfield? On a tangent I worked past a newsagent in Marlow last week to see a 'famous author' advertising for a cleaner. Rosemary was the contact name. I wonder who that could have been?

I know Beaconsfield is favoured by TV personalities and actresses these days but not sure about writers?