What Enid Blyton book have you recently bought?

[Tony Summerfield]

All Newnes books that started with a white spine went to a pictorial spine and this applied to other authors like Malcolm Saville's books as well. They also all lost their colour frontis fairly quickly and later books never had them in the first place - I am not too sure why you find this odd, Sixret!

Incidentally the colour frontis of Naughty Amelia Jane was not just confined to the 1st edition.

[sixret]

Thnak you.

[Wolfgang]

Some books arrived today:
Le Mystère du sac magique Hachette idéale 1978 The Mystery of the Strange Bundle
Le Mystère de la roche percée Hachette 1967 The Rubadub Mystery
Le Club des cinq en vacances Hachette 1966 Five Go to Smuggler's Top
De 5 og Spionerrne Grafisk Forlag 6/1970 Five go adventuring again

I don't know though, when or if I'll ever read the last one.

[John Pickup]

All Newnes books that started with a white spine went to a pictorial spine and this applied to other authors like Malcolm Saville's books as well.

Did the first Lone Pine book, Mystery At Witchend, have a wraparound dustwrapper for its first edition before reverting to a white spine for a time? Maybe you could clarify that for me please, Tony.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Le Mystère du sac magique Hachette idéale 1978 The Mystery of the Strange Bundle

The Mystery of the Magic Bag? That makes me think of the "sac magique" in the children's programme Tots TV (it appears at 1.18):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_q4jYMgE9I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[sixret]

Some books arrived today:

De 5 og Spionerrne Grafisk Forlag 6/1970 Five go adventuring again

I don't know though, when or if I'll ever read the last one.

Well done, Wolfgang. I may not know French much but I know that much that the title above is not French? Am I wrong?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Is it Danish?

[Tony Summerfield]

Did the first Lone Pine book, Mystery At Witchend, have a wraparound dustwrapper for its first edition before reverting to a white spine for a time? Maybe you could clarify that for me please, Tony.

It did indeed, John, here is my copy.



It cost me £4.50, back in the days before the internet ruined everything!

[Rob Houghton]

What a weird dust wrapper for 'Mystery at Witchend'! By weird, I mean its unusual that the most important part of the cover (size-wise) is on the back, while the front is a bit bland without any real focus! It seems odd that for a while the publishers did away with the back section, which looks better than the front! Great colours though.

I know its a popular myth that the internet ruined prices, but I don't altogether agree...maybe for first editions it did, but before the internet, I bought my Adventure series books with dust wrappers from my favourite bookshop in Stratford - they all cost me between £18 - £22 each. Since then I've replaced a few with much better wrapper copies from eBay - for between £1.99 and £12.00...

[Tony Summerfield]

I'm sure I have probably said this before, but in my early days I had a phone call from a dealer on the Isle of Wight telling me that she had 1st editions of the first six Famous Five books all in perfect wrappers and was I interested, she apologetically added that because of their pristine condition she was going to want £40 for them. I thought about it fairly quickly and said I would like them. She phoned me back a short while later and said she was terribly sorry but she had made a mistake as they were the Adventure books, so did I still want them. I did!

I agree that the Mystery at Witchend wrapper by G E Breary was a bit odd, which is possibly why it didn't last and got replaced by a Bertram Prance wrapper, but this wasn't a wraparound one. I was actually offered £300 for this by a visitor to the house 25 years ago, but I still have it. I did however sell him The Mystery of the Hidden House for £50 - the Armada paperback! It took me years to replace it with a less good copy!

[pete9012S]

Hope Francis doesn't read about that!

I wonder what book you would consider to be the best ever bargain of all the books you have ever bought Tony?

It sounds like you started collecting at just the right time!

[Tony Summerfield]

Sorry Pete, but I added to my post above not realising that anybody had replied! The book above was quite a bargain as it is probably worth a penny or three now - I bought it along with eight Blyton books, mostly 1st editions all from the early 1940s, but they were cheaper! The previous owner had taken all the wrappers off and kept them in a drawer and covered the books with brown paper wrappers. This was a university bookshop in Preston which just sold academic books and I was about to leave when I saw these books in a small bookcase on the counter. I bought them all and they were delighted to get rid of them as they didn't really belong in that sort of shop.

[pete9012S]

Talk about being in the right place at the right time!

I stupidly did not buy a book I spotted that was signed by Agatha Christie because it was about her travels/archaeological exploits with her husband and not a thriller.

The seller didn't even realise it was signed.I could have had it for under £10...
It would be worth hundreds now...

[Wolfgang]

Is it Danish?

Spot on, Anita. I still wonder if I should try to get hold of the Danish film they made of it.

[Rob Houghton]

I did however sell him The Mystery of the Hidden House for £50 - the Armada paperback! It took me years to replace it with a less good copy!

I'm always amazed that these paperback versions go for such large amounts of money - as they were so badly made and the pages tend to fall out as soon as you look at them!!