Britain's best-loved author 2008

[Anita Bensoussane]

Okay, BBC Breakfast just returned to Kate Saunders. This time she praised Enid Blyton for her "very good" characters - but singled out Noddy and Big-Ears as examples of such characters!

Anita

[Tony Summerfield]

"And right now, with so many brilliant, cutting-edge authors introducing a new generation of children to books (Philip Pullman is the most startling omission from the list) we're still being asked to genuflect in front of a fossil… more loved even than Dickens or Shakespeare indeed! As far as I can see, that's not real love at all. It's dotage."

These are the words of Anthony Horowitz in yesterday's Daily Telegraph. Surprisingly he also has a few sharp words for Midsomer Murders, perhaps he has forgotten in his 'dotage' that he was the original script writer and the whole series was his idea!

[Rob Houghton]

Thanks for the link Nigel! Really enjoyed listening to her talking about her life and about George. Ahh.. This makes me feel that it'd be lovely if anyone can hear Enid Blyton's own voice telling Famous Five or Barney Mystery stories.. Imagining her describing every details she sees in her mind at the very moment!

That's why I'm so pleased to own the 45rpm records of Enid reading a shortened version (based on the play, with some of the songs included) of 'Noddy in Toyland', recorded in the late 1950's. It's lovely to hear enid reading these stories just as she intended them to be read.

[Julie2owlsdene]

That's why I'm so pleased to own the 45rpm records of Enid reading a shortened version (based on the play, with some of the songs included) of 'Noddy in Toyland', recorded in the late 1950's. It's lovely to hear enid reading these stories just as she intended them to be read.

Gosh you lucky thing Robert. What a lovely treasured possession to own.

[Anita Bensoussane]

"And right now, with so many brilliant, cutting-edge authors introducing a new generation of children to books (Philip Pullman is the most startling omission from the list) we're still being asked to genuflect in front of a fossil… more loved even than Dickens or Shakespeare indeed! As far as I can see, that's not real love at all. It's dotage."

These are the words of Anthony Horowitz in yesterday's Daily Telegraph. Surprisingly he also has a few sharp words for Midsomer Murders, perhaps he has forgotten in his 'dotage' that he was the original script writer and the whole series was his idea!

"Dotage"? That really is rather rude of Anthony Horowitz! I read out his Telegraph article to my daughter and she said that he was a guest on the TV programme SMart a while back, and that he was so surly and unresponsive that the presenters seemed quite embarrassed!

Blyton's style, depending on how you look at it, is either simple and accessible or, as the writer Geoffrey Trease put it, "drained of all difficulty until it achieves a kind of aesthetic anaemia".

Had to chuckle at that as some of the dullest books I've ever read were by Geoffrey Trease (the first couple of titles from the Bannerdale series)! They were a bit like Malcolm Saville but with all the excitement sucked out.

Blyton was able to write so many books because they're all, more or less, the same.

I've read the first five or so of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series and enjoyed them very much - extremely fast-paced, slickly written, full of action but also quite emotional. Funnily enough, it struck me that some elements were rather Blyton-like - Alex swimming through an underground tunnel filled with water, criminals with various deformities, a boarding-school, etc. One day my daughter and I were discussing an episode from the Alex Rider series but we couldn't remember which book it was from. We concluded that that was "because they were all, more or less, the same!"

Anita

[Pippa-Stef]

I suppose he can get away with it, because Enid can't defend herself.

It was Rowling for instance, she'd hit back or he'd be nicer!

[Tony Summerfield]

I was a bit surprised to read some of the things that were written in an article in the Dorset Echo. Enid seems to have graduated from spending holidays in the Swanage area to spending 'much of her time there'. The article also implies that she wrote many of her books there, but I have never seen this in print before.

It looks as if they may also be claiming that the Enchanted Wood could be found in the Purbeck area. They are going to be very disappointed that the new Famous Five book is not set in Dorset at all!

[Tony Summerfield]

Another article for everybody to enjoy appears in The Scotsman.

This journalist seems to think that the name Fatty is politically incorrect - could be the end of a whole series! I do wish that Journalists would do their homework a bit better with the spelling of 'Malory', it appears as 'Mallory' in many of the articles.

[Moonraker]

I do wish that Journalists would do their homework a bit better with the spelling of 'Malory', it appears as 'Mallory' in many of the articles.

There is certainly a need for proof-reading. I have just read an article on Enid Blyton in the current edition of Best of British. It is quite a good article, mainly biographical, but there are many errors. In spite of the cover of In the Fifth at Malory Towers being alongside the quote, they again spell it Mallory. There is mention of her one-off novel, Six Bad Days and apparantly The Boy Next Door is about four children who set up home on a houseboat. One of my favourite series, The Enchanted Wood, is apparantly about a magic wood full of goblins, pixies and strange goings on. And I always thought it was about an amazing tree, the people who live in it and the lands that appear at the top.

Enid seems to have graduated from spending holidays in the Swanage area to spending 'much of her time there'. The article also implies that she wrote many of her books there, but I have never seen this in print before. It looks as if the may also be claiming that the Enchanted Wood could be found in the Purbeck area. They are going to be very disappointed that the new Famous Five book is not set in Dorset at all!

In an earlier post, Viv implied that Enid would not have approved of her series being continued by other writers. I wonder what Enid would have thought about Viv making out that the village of Corfe Castle was in fact Kirrin?

Who knows, the new Enchanted Wood book may well find the intrepid travellers in The Land of Ginger Pop!

[Pippa-Stef]

The PC brigade have moved in!

[Rob Houghton]

Talking of political correctness :

People are always calling me 'Rob'...Maybe theives will be upset...Perhaps I should change my name?

[Vic Nicholas]

I was excited by the reference to 20 new books.

I pray to God that some talented author out there has written some new FFO books set in the FFO hey day of the 40's and early 50's.

If someone can pull that off, I for certain would be buying them to read even if they are non canonical.

[Kitty]

I was excited by the reference to 20 new books.

I pray to God that some talented author out there has written some new FFO books set in the FFO hey day of the 40's and early 50's.

If someone can pull that off, I for certain would be buying them to read even if they are non canonical.

I'd settle for one genuine undiscovered FFO short story - it would be one of the literary events of my life - (sadly) I'm not even joking!

It would be lovely to see a mass-market 'new' set of FFOs on the shelves, with glossy vintage-styled covers... I've also off and on wished that someone would write a FFO continuation with the Find-Outers as adults. I know it has the potential to be dreadful, but I still have this earnest wish to know what happened next. If only Enid had decided to write an afterword like the Deathly Hallows one (well, not exactly like the DH one, it was rather cringy. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose!)

[Anita Bensoussane]

There is certainly a need for proof-reading. I have just read an article on Enid Blyton in the current edition of Best of British. It is quite a good article, mainly biographical, but there are many errors. In spite of the cover of In the Fifth at Malory Towers being alongside the quote, they again spell it Mallory. There is mention of her one-off novel, Six Bad Days and apparantly The Boy Next Door is about four children who set up home on a houseboat. One of my favourite series, The Enchanted Wood, is apparantly about a magic wood full of goblins, pixies and strange goings on. And I always thought it was about an amazing tree, the people who live in it and the lands that appear at the top.

Sounds more like a need to actually read the books than a need for proof-reading! Six Bad Days sounds intriguing - I'd like to read it!

Blyton spent much of her time in the Swanage area as she churned out 21 Famous Five books, as well as other favourites like the Noddy stories.

She would often write at a table set up in front of the clubhouse at the Isle of Purbeck golf club and eventually bought the club with part of the proceeds.

Enid seems to have graduated from spending holidays in the Swanage area to spending 'much of her time there'. The article also implies that she wrote many of her books there, but I have never seen this in print before.

I'd never heard either that Enid Blyton used to write at a table set up in front of the clubhouse.

Anita

[Tony Summerfield]

I have just spoken to Barbara Stoney and she says that this is absolute rubbish as Enid never did any writing apart from letters, whilst she was in Dorset, nor would she ever have written them at the golf club in the manner suggested.