The Enid Blyton Society

Liam very kindly made the book available for free on the forums when it was first published.

It might not appeal to everyone,but I have found it very useful and extremely interesting.
I think Fiona has used it in her research too.

This is the information the book includes in its opening pages.
I'm sure Liam will be able to clarify anything more specific if needed.

Thanks for coming back to us, Pete. If I am reading what you have shown correctly he used 2001 editions, something that I half suspected in the first place - that it was not the original ones! You have to realise that some of the words were probably not what Enid wrote, but were the work of a later editor. Enid was very fond of using the words 'gay' and 'queer' and I wonder to what extent they feature in Liam's book or if they have all been edited out!

Well -no disrespect to Liam - but that makes a big, big difference. You can't really assess the 21 books and discuss how often Enid used certain words if you are talking about 2001 reprints! I had been under the impression we were discussing the first editions, or at least early ones...so the fact that the books consulted were only from 2001 is a whole different kettle of fish!

If the findings are based on 2001 editions then its pretty certain we wouldn't always be discussing Enid Blyton's own choice of words.

I have never thought Liam would have been able to use the original text for this type of book - but was still grateful to have a book like this - even if it was based on later editions.

I searched for 'gay' and 'queer' in the book and they don't appear at all.That got me wondering what words replaced them and if they were consistent throughout the twenty one books.

As I have already said the book certainly won't be of interest to everyone,but I enjoy dipping into it for research from time to time,especially as I won't ever be buying any of the newer editions and only own the originals and the Knight 1960's & 1970's paperbacks.

With Liam's book and it's easy search facility I can now compare words from all editions any time I like quite easily.
So once again,many thanks to Liam for making it available to anybody who might be interested.

I don't knock his achievement in compiling this book - and I agree on its usefulness - to a certain extent...but surely page numbers would be different in the original editions? So if you only have originals, it would be quite difficult to use?

I really didn't think such a comprehensive book would use 2001 editions. That has genuinely shocked me. I guess I'm pretty innocent!

When I started the book, I wasn’t aware of the large amount of revising that had gone on. Plus the idea of the book evolved during the writing/compiling. It started out as a much more conversational book, but then I realized I was dealing with copyrighted material, and so a lot of the fictional elements would be off limits to me, so it then took that more nonfictional form. I did use some earlier editions - there is a bit on changes - but for the sake of uniformity, I made all the references apply to one edition.

At least I was aware of the many editions and formats, which is why the reference included paragraph numbers. Yes, paragraph numbers, after the colon ”:”, e.g. the “10” in 06Kir6:10/pg62, in addition to book, chapter and page number.

Thanks for answering, Liam. I certainly don't knock your achievement - in fact I'm rather in awe of all the work you must have done to create such a book. I know I've made fun of the title at one point, but the contents are literally awesome - a great reference book. I just think its a shame it wasn't done using the original versions - but I agree with you that I also wasn't aware of all the changes that have taken place over the years either, until they were discussed on here.

Thank you, Liam. I am reading Five Fall Into Adventure. Halfway through. I found the word mutt being used once in Chapter 12. I haven't found the word idiot yet.

That’s interesting, sixret. You should have met two of the three occurrences of the word "idiot" already. What edition are you using?

09Fal1:14/pg3
09Fal1:34/pg7
09Fal15:35/pg147

Yes - I found the word 'idiot' on page 13 of the 8th impression - Chapter one - page 13 - 9 paragraph - 'You're just the same old idiot,'

Rob, that’s a big difference, from page 13 to page 3, and from paragraph 9 to 14. I’m assuming “13” is a typo? Even five lost paragraphs would be a major change.

It's page 13 because Chapter One starts on page 11. The page starts with speech - "Julian! Dick! Anne! Your train's late; we thought you were never coming!" and continues with some unusual non-attributed speech - which makes the paragraph count higher than it might be - but the mention of 'still the same old idiot' is indeed on the 9th paragraph (second line of the ninth paragraph) on page 13.

Like Rob, I found the word "idiot" in my copy after looking at your comment, Liam. But the word idiot is on Chapter 1 page 13 and paragraph 9. The copy that I have been reading is first edition.

I didn't find the word idiot on 34/pg7 but I found it on page 16 paragraph 2.

I didn't check the word idiot on 35/pg147 because the page might be different.

From all of this, my guess is the word "idiot" is unchanged from the earliest editions.

It does look that way...although its quite difficult to check, because as we've discovered, none of the page numbers or paragraph numbers match up! I only found the first one because I knew it was near the start of the book.