Andrew Maunder - Enid Blyton: A Literary Life

[Jack400]

I've never had a book that could be machine washed before- maybe it's for bathtime reading?

[Moonraker]

Maybe it’s a soap.

[db105]

Will there be an ebook version?

[Mathias123]

Yes, there will be.

[pete9012S]

That is great news! Thank you.

[Anita Bensoussane]

My one big discovery (at least as far as I was concerned) is how good some of the family stories are: House-at-the-Corner and Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm & sequel - very good on teenage psychology, parents and family dynamics. It's a shame they aren't better known.

The Six Cousins books made a huge impression on me as a child, as did The Six Bad Boys and The Family at Red-Roofs. I was struck by the powerful writing and hard-hitting topics. They're still my favourite Enid Blyton books, along with the Adventure series.

[GloomyGraham]

I only discovered these books (and the other standalone House/Family stories) aged about 11 when I had 'grown out' of Blyton books.

They were certainly more grown-up than the majority of Enid's output and at the time it seemed like her evil twin could have written ''Bad Boys". They are still my favourites too.

[Lucky Star]

I discovered the Six Cousins books as a child and loved them deeply for the powerful portraits Enid pained of her characters. I read the other two as an adult and was also mightily impressed although neither of them have the same place in my affections as the Six Cousins.

[timv]

Hopefully a good write-up for Enid's 'forgotten' books in 'A Literary Life' will lead to more enquiries about them by readers and a publishing decision to reprint them - the Six Cousins books, House At The Corner, and Family At Red Roofs in particular, and possibly Come To The Circus too. My generation were really lucky to have the Armada edition to collect in the late 1960s, with the exciting Mary Gernat covers, and I read most of these books before I was ten and loved them. I never thought then that they'd be out of print, and with luck that can be reversed - which will help Enid's reputation for 'serious' writing. (I'd like to see Those Dreadful Children and The Boy Next Door republished too.)

Mind you, I've come across this problem of only 'main series' by prominent authors being republished elsewhere too for top 1940s-60s authors - and it's produced a somewhat distorted picture for modern readers and critics of their full output. In the case of some authors, they even referenced characters and situations from their non-mainstream books in their main series to help sales (I think Enid only does this with putting Jimmy and Lucky from Galliano's Circus in one of the St Clare's books) and this has led to baffled readers who'd never seen the non-mainstream books wondering who these characters were!

[Moonraker]

I never really enjoyed Six Bad Boys - it was the "EastEnders" of Enid's writing. It seemed quite depressing to me.

[pete9012S]

I read the book when I was a young lad. I remember the Mum who I think gave her son away to go and live with another family quite shell shocking!

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

I discovered the Six Cousins books as a child and loved them deeply for the powerful portraits Enid pained of her characters. I read the other two as an adult and was also mightily impressed although neither of them have the same place in my affections as the Six Cousins.

This is the problem when trying to discuss Blyton with a Critic who 'grew out' of Blyton at age 7.

They don't know the full range of her writing.

Viv

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, Enid Blyton's range was extraordinary. Some of her family books would make compelling TV serials or films as the adult characters are just as interesting as the children and teenagers. I'm thinking of strongly drawn characters such as Rose Longfield, Dorcas and Twigg (Six Cousins books), Mrs. Kent (The Six Bad Boys) and Jenny Wren (The Family at Red-Roofs).

There's an article in The Guardian (dated yesterday) which looks at a letter quoted by Andrew Maunder in Enid Blyton: A Literary Life. The letter was written by Enid Blyton in 1950 to Roland Heath, her editor at Macmillan, and she admits to feeling under strain at times:

I would love to write another book for you straight away … but I feel I really must cut down just a little on my books for a while – it’s really my correspondence that gets me down, and the continual public appearances I am always pressed to make...

...I don’t feel tired, but I feel a bit strained sometimes especially when the children are home and we have other children in the house too – it’s such a strain to run the whole house, see to the children, keep my work going, and answer thousands of personal letters, which even a dozen secretaries couldn’t answer without being dictated to.

Andrew Maunder draws extensively on Enid Blyton's business correspondence, explaining that the letters to Macmillan had been largely overlooked "partly because they've not been catalogued yet." This sounds fascinating and I look forward to reading his book in due course.

Here's a link to the article from The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/ ... 4H3-sZJFAQ

[pete9012S]

Most interesting Anita. Many thanks. In my mind, I had imagined Enid to be indefatigable in 1950, so this admission was a bit of a surprise to me.

Her output listed in the cave for 1950 is most impressive:

1950:
https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/sea ... earch=1950

[Boodi 2]

In view of the strain she was under it is amazing that she actually made time to reply to all the personal letters herself.