The Enid Blyton Society

Hi all,

I am looking to get a complete set of secret seven books, but I strongly dislike the fact that a lot of Enid Blyton's work has been updated, e.g. changing amounts of money, vocabulary etc.

Hodder have published the books with the original artwork (1996 / 2000), which looks nice but I don't like buying modern Blytons!

Does anyone know if the content inside these editions is the same as older editions, or are they modernised?

Thanks,
Kirsty

They are modernised in some ways. You can always buy the vintage Secret Seven books with original texts on Ebay. Usually, you can get one vintage SS book with original text for less than £10 including postage to mainland UK. You can also buy the job lot of Secret Seven so that you can save your money. They are abundant. Vintage SS(pre- 1970s) is the series that you can easily collect.

I'd agree with sixret. Those Hodder editions were missed opportunity and there even occasions where the original drawings clearly don't relate to the updated text.

The vintage paperback editons with Derek Lucas covers and then the photo covers are also easily available and reasonably priced .I think they are uneditted too

The 1960s-70s paperbacks with Derek Lucas or photo covers do have very occasional minor edits, though nothing much - e.g. "overcoats" has become "anoraks" in some (though not all) instances and Scamper doesn't "make love to the cook" in Good Work Secret Seven. Enid Blyton had a tendency to sprinkle the text liberally with dashes, some of which have been removed.