Hachette Reverting to Classic Text for the Famous Five!

[Francis]

I have just been talking to a producer at BBC Breakfast (TV) and she says that there is going to be a discussion about this on the programme tomorrow morning if anybody is interested.

Thanks Tony - I'll be watching.

[Julie2owlsdene]

I have just been talking to a producer at BBC Breakfast (TV) and she says that there is going to be a discussion about this on the programme tomorrow morning if anybody is interested.

I don't suppose she mentioned a time, did she, Tony?

[Anita Bensoussane]

It is a while since I read any of the Famous Five books, but I don't remember the expression 'jolly japes' being used although it gets quoted in most articles. Perhaps a more recent reader of the books can enlighten me.

I don't recall the expression "jolly japes" being used by Enid Blyton either. We had a discussion about that back in 2012 when talking about revisions to the Secret Seven books:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... es#p125830" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An article published in The Independent at the time quoted Marlene Johnson, then managing director of Hachette's children's books division, as saying, "...these days you don't talk of jolly japes to kids":

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 93596.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The phrase had been used in connection with Enid Blyton even earlier than that, e.g. in this 2010 piece from The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/ ... e-makeover" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Newspaper reporters consult old articles when writing about related matters so it's not surprising (although annoying) that "jolly japes" has gradually become associated with Enid Blyton. Initially I expect someone used the phrase as an example of the kind of old-fashioned language that was being removed from children's books in general, but some people mistakenly thought they were saying it appeared in Blyton books.

[Fiona1986]

There are plenty of jollies in the books (jolly good, jolly time etc) but I can't recall japes being used either alone or with jolly. As others have mentioned I think it's another 'lashings and lashings of ginger beer' situation.

[Courtenay]

"Japes" is one word I know I've never seen in any Enid Blyton book. I don't think I had ever seen or heard the term anywhere until I was a teenager and it came up on a British TV show totally unrelated to Blyton!!

[Francis]

Charles Hamilton who wrote (amongst many others) the Greyfriars stories used 'japes' quite a lot in the earlier stories. This was sometime before Enid's main series started and it was out of fashion by then (as was "ripping" and other school slang words) .

[Sally H]

It was great news to see the item in the Times yesterday - hopefully this might be the start of publishers of all the series rethinking the "modernisation" of text which doesn't fit with the overall time setting of the stories. As we have all agreed before, the books are a time piece, set in the 40s and 50s and should remain in tact. Re-read recently the Railway Children and any changes here would be impossible to imagine.

Could this be an opportunity for the Society to start a campaign for the text of the original books to be re-instated? Any thoughts Tony?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks for letting us know about BBC Breakfast, Tony. In case anyone missed it, the Enid Blyton discussion was very brief and came right at the end of the programme. The presenter introduced the segment with the words, "Here is a jolly jape to finish the show." Someone read a passage from Five on a Treasure Island which the presenter claimed was "as it was originally written," but since it was actually the 1997 text it included several mentions of the children wearing jeans!

Guest Rob Drummond, a language expert from Manchester Metropolitan University, welcomed the return to the earlier text as he said you can't really separate a story of a particular time from the language of that particular time - not without altering the essence of the story.

[Daisy]

Thanks for that Anita - I must say I had forgotten to watch. It's a pity they managed to use a passage mentioning jeans though!

[MJE]

There are plenty of jollies in the books (jolly good, jolly time etc) but I can't recall japes being used either alone or with jolly. As others have mentioned I think it's another 'lashings and lashings of ginger beer' situation.

     I'm sure I've never seen "jape" in any Enid Blyton book, so if it does appear, I'm guessing it would be a later revision. I think I did see "lashings of cream" somewhere in a Famous Five book once (forget which one), but I think I saw it only the once - not the dozens of times some of the commentators seem to suggest with ginger beer. Even if a phrase really does appear in a Blyton book once or twice, it is really unfair for journalists to latch upon it and suggest that it peppers her books in huge numbers to the point of an irritating mannerism.
     I guess this news about the reversion to earlier texts has to be an improvement, but if the texts are reverting to a 1990s version, it seems to me it is stripping away only one layer of alterations. My impression is that you have to go to before 1970 to get something approaching the original text. (I don't actually know if some alterations were made even before then, but I would suppose they are very few.)
     Does anyone know if the television items relating to this appear on a web site anywhere, or perhaps on YouTube? (Of course, being in Australia, I had no way of seeing this, even if I were visiting someone who owned a T.V.)

Regards, Michael.

[floragord]

Hope you had a lovely lunch(eon!) and enjoyable discussion, Anita and Tony.

Thanks, Flora. You can read more about it here:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... te#p275417" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you Anita, that was most interesting, sounded like a lovely day. Just by chance I saw the BREAKFAST piece this am, looks like the topic will run and run!

[Rob Houghton]

Could this be an opportunity for the Society to start a campaign for the text of the original books to be re-instated? Any thoughts Tony?

I doubt that would happen, realistically, as it would involve reinstating the word 'nigger' in a couple of the books, for example! Also, the word 'gypsies' would never be used nowadays.

I'm happy they've done away with the 2010 version though - and better still they admitted they'd made a mistake. On the other hand, the press get hold of a story like this and make it more explosive than it really was - after all, the book texts have been altered several times since the early 1970's and when the 2010 rewrites came out, even though they had more radical changes, the 'original' (1990's) text was always still available.

[deepeabee]

I'd like to see the return of the original money. I was reading a famous five book where Dick gave 5 pence to Jo. 5 pence is nowhere near as valuable as a shilling would have been. It would make more sense to re-instate the old money as children can cope if they come across it. It would put a bit of reason back into what would have been a generous gift. My friend and I used to have 2d to spend on sweets - a shilling would have been beyond our wildest dreams! 5 pence doesn't even come near.

[Daisy]

I would endorse that too. The way inflation goes, the books are always going to out of date in that regard.

[Rob Houghton]

I agree about the money. I still smile when I read the Dean versions of the Naughtiest Girl and see they are expected to live on 20p a week!