The Enid Blyton Society

Matt has increased the number of poll options to 15 - so now we really can have a poll on this question.

Unfortunately, to set up a poll, you must start a new thread. As before, I'm going for Missing Necklace.

I don't know which to vote for. Pantomime Cat and Strange Messages are my favourites, but I love Burnt Cottage, Disappearing Cat and Hidden House as well. I'll have to do a sort of lottery!

Difficult, as I have enjoyed most of them so much at one time or the other.
I'll go for no 10. It's the 1st one I owned and probably the 2nd that I read. The plot was never easy to understand for me, so it keeps it fresh somehow.

Well, I did a lottrery and Strange Messages gets my vote.

I chose Strange Bundle because of the cosy wintry atmosphere and the humour.

Anita

Chose Spiteful Letters, it could have been one of several others though. But SL has consistently impressed me with it's menace, the range of well-writtten auxiliary characters, and it's very adult for a children's book - the concentrated, lacklustre spite, that was under the Hilton's palatial roof all the time, is somehow more potent than some of the flashier criminals. Adore the atmosphere conveyed in Enid's writing on the bus, at Sheepsale and at the Minerals cottage too. And Bets' sideswipe at The Little Saint!

Was The Little Saint the book Gladys lent her? Is it a real book, do you know?

Anita

Yes, that was the book Gladys lent her. Not sure if it is a real book, though.

BTW, I just went and checked who was online, and both mine and your said "Viewing Who Is Online"! I've seen more than one user at the same place, but never in the viewing online part!

Missing Necklace for me. It was almost Disappearing Cat, which was my childhood favourite, but I think Necklace was the best plotted, and the best ending.

Anita Bensoussane wrote:Was The Little Saint the book Gladys lent her? Is it a real book, do you know?

Anita

Not sure - sounds like it ought to be, doesn't it?! Just looked up the BL catalogue, there's a few results - although one of them's a Maigret novel!! But two preachy seeming ones, one "The Little Saint; or the Life and Death of Mary Grant, to which is added a memoir of little Benjamin, also The Young Monitor, a pious youth." (from 1824, but I expect it was reprinted into the thousands of Sunday school editions), and one "The Little Saint of God. The Heroine of the Red Terror" from 1901. I've got a love/hate relationship with these kinds of books - often the binding is so beautiful, and they're more regularly available at jumble sales than obscure Enids that you actually want to find! But sometimes the storylines are terrifying! I wonder if Enid did have the first one in mind - I quite want to read it, now!

I went for Missing Necklace though perhaps only because I had an old copy as a child and liked it much better than my new versions . I like, too, that Fatty actually - gasp - enters puberty in this book with his voice breaking..

[Kitty:] "I wonder if Enid did have the first one in mind - I quite want to read it, now!"

So do I - it would probably seem quite amusing these days! I recall borrowing an old-fashioned children's book from the library when I was ten or eleven, about a girl who lived in a caravan and enjoyed reading religious tracts. I think it involved circus or fair folk, or travelling performers of some kind. I don't remember much about the plot but it all felt rather solemn and somewhat bizarre. Anyone happen to know what that book was?

Around the same time I read another one called Holiday House - but not by Enid Blyton. It was about some naughty children, and someone in the family (their elder brother, I think) died in bed from a lingering illness. Again it was horribly solemn and made me shiver.

[Moose:] "I went for Missing Necklace though perhaps only because I had an old copy as a child and liked it much better than my new versions . I like, too, that Fatty actually - gasp - enters puberty in this book with his voice breaking.."

Missing Necklace is my second favourite because of the ingenious disguises. After that comes Invisible Thief because it's a real whodunnit.

Anita

Anita Bensoussane wrote:[Kitty:]

So do I - it would probably seem quite amusing these days! I recall borrowing an old-fashioned children's book from the library when I was ten or eleven, about a girl who lived in a caravan and enjoyed reading religious tracts. I think it involved circus or fair folk, or travelling performers of some kind. I don't remember much about the plot but it all felt rather solemn and somewhat bizarre. Anyone happen to know what that book was?

Anita

Oh, that rings a bell! O F Walton, maybe? One of hers had a caravan in it, I think. Someone told me some of her books are still in print!!! I wonder if they update them? I just don't know, but it sounds very familiar. Maybe I read a summary of it in something else, though. Hmm. Very intruiging!!!

I just Googled O F Walton and recognised one of her titles - A Peep Behind the Scenes. I'm pretty sure that that was the book. Thanks, Kitty!

Anita

Anita Bensoussane wrote:I just Googled O F Walton and recognised one of her titles - A Peep Behind the Scenes. I'm pretty sure that that was the book.
Anita

You made it sound very strange and entertaining. I'm going to look out for a cheap copy now!!