The Enid Blyton Society

I know Tony has an extensive collection of paperback books - Armada I think?

I also have a large bookcase full of all my childhood Enid Blyton's that were bought for me as kind gifts from my close relatives.
Many are inscribed with loving dedications from my relatives. Although many are now bruised and battered, I just can't bring myself to chuck them out.

I have the same affinity with these well thumbed paperbacks as many do with the hardbacks. I love all my hardbacks too and agree with you that they also are very special.

Tony Summerfield wrote:A few Armada books.

A very impressive collection, Pete.

I like quite a lot of the paperbacks although, given a choice, I’d always opt for the hardback editions - preferably with dustwrappers.

I think it depends on your own personal experience. If you were lucky enough as a child to have access to the originals in hardback then yes, I'm sure those were very attractive and more exciting than the paperbacks...but as a child I never had any original Enid Blyton hardbacks, with or without wrappers. So if I wanted to read Enid Blyton books, I had to read paperbacks or annuals or the Dean hardbacks or go without!

My sister had all the paperbacks - full set of Famous Five Betty Maxey covers, Barney Mysteries, a few Fatty books etc, and also some Dean books - Faraway Tree set, one Wishing Chair book, Willow Farm, Galliano. I had a ready-supply of EB books but none were originals. I had some of my own Secret Seven books in paperback, some Deans like Binkle and Flip and Amelia Jane, and two Famous Five annuals (the only Fives I ever read as a child) - but no original hardbacks except for 'The Rilloby Fair Mystery which I bought for 10p aged about 11.

I think that's why I still prefer the Derek Lucas Secret Seven illustrations, Maxey covers, Rene Cloke Faraway Tree illustrations - its what I grew up with.

I do understand about hardbacks and now I have all the major series mostly with wrappers, and I love the look and smell and feel of them - but if I'd only wanted the hardback originals as a child I would never have read any Enid Blyton book!

As a child growing up in the late forties and early fifties, paperbacks were quite a rarity and so the majority of the children’s books in my collection were hardback editions. However, I do recall having a couple of Worzel Gummidge books in paperback from a very early age, but I can’t remember having any other paperback editions of children’s ‘novels’.

In contrast, I don't think I owned a hardback children's novel (except annuals and the Dean books) until I bought that dust wrapper copy of Rilloby Fair aged 11. I had a couple of my mom's old childhood books that were hardback - Little Women and What Katy Did Next were two I remember - but otherwise all mine were paperback (or Deans - which along with annuals were the only hardbacks I had).

For me, a 'hardback' had a glazed cover like an annual. I don't think I even realised there were such things as dust wrappers back then, as even my 'Deans' were glazed picture board editions.

I have a few paperbacks not many though and they are in a box in our loft! I much prefer a hardback book, of Enid's I must confess which the majority of my collection is.

Nice collection Pete, though I can't see the titles.

Eddie Muir wrote:A very impressive collection, Pete.

Those are actually my Armada books, Eddie, not Pete's! What puzzle's me is where did Pete get the photo from, as I had about 500 images in these forums which have all been executed by Photobucket!

The only images of mine that are now there are ones that I have added in the last few months.

Yes,the wonderful Armada paperbacks are all Tony's.

I added this extension to my chrome browser Tony. It enables viewing of photobucket images from the past:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... s?hl=en-GB" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I made the same mistake, sorry Tony, nice collection, I must have seen them when I visited the Cave a few years back!

I must have seen your impressive collection of Armada paperbacks during a visit to the Cave too, Tony.

Gosh, when I was little I hardly noticed or minded whether a particular Enid Blyton book we had was hardcover or paperback — I just read 'em! We had a whole mixture of older and newer ones, most of them picked up expertly by Mum from charity shops and second hand book stalls at local fetes. You could easily get a decent second hand Blyton paperback (sometimes even a hardcover) for under 50 cents back then...

I grew up with the hardback editions but sadly, they weren't mine, I borrowed them from the library. I used to buy the Armada versions of the Find Outer series in the early sixties and I liked the covers and the different colours for each book.

I think this explains the phenomenal sales of the paperbacks Enid talks about in her diaries - kids must have been desperate to collect whole sets of their favourite books - and with the coming of paperbacks, they suddenly could! It revolutionised children's reading back in the 1960's, I should think, as suddenly books were accessible to many more people.

John Pickup wrote:I grew up with the hardback editions but sadly, they weren't mine, I borrowed them from the library. I used to buy the Armada versions of the Find Outer series in the early sixties and I liked the covers and the different colours for each book.

I posted the entry below this one on the the forum in May 2013. I’m repeating it as it seems relevant to the current discussion about hardback editions of Enid Blyton books. Like you, John, I grew up with hardback editions which I borrowed from the library. I could count my own collection of hardbacks on my fingers in those far-off days. However, as you will see from what I have written below, I had to use a private library as my local public library had very few Blytons in their catalogues and the few they had were nearly always out on loan.

I've been reading Enid Blyton books on and off for more than sixty years and so I've read most of them. The first one I read was Chuff the Chimney Sweep and other stories when I was about six or seven. From then until I was about twelve or thirteen, I read every Enid Blyton book I could lay my hands on. The local public library didn't have many of them and so I joined a small private library, at the back of a Brighton sweet shop, where I borrowed children's books on a weekly basis at 2d per book. The library was well-stocked with Enid's books and so every Saturday morning I would pay a visit and borrow three books for 6d. I stopped reading Enid Blyton books at around the age of twelve or thirteen as I thought I was too old for them. I didn't start reading them again until I was in my thirties and since then I have read or re-read just about the entire Enid Blyton canon and have thoroughly enjoyed my reacquaintance with this wonderful author. I intend to continue reading her books over and over again, especially the Find-Outers series, for the rest of my life.

I honestly didn't care that much about the covers when I was little - I just wanted more Blyton words to read. I think I only had one or two 'new' dustcover hardbacks back then and maybe a few other second-hand hardbacks.

I didn't like the Dean junior hardbacks (no covers) illustrations very much, but would buy these as they were affordable hardbacks. For some rare titles that I hadn't heard of or seen much before, any dog-eared second-hand paperback would do!