Editorial Changes in the Famous Five Series

[LizaMiller]

Hi everyone,

I'm a researcher currently writing a thesis on changing gender depictions in children's books. One of my focuses is on how publishing companies have made editorial changes - or 'updates' - to classics as they've been released in new editions. If anyone has any information about when any such changes occurred in the Famous Five series - such as the deletion of words no longer perceived to be politically correct, be them expressly relating to gender or not - I'd be really grateful. And if you don't have the information yourself, but think you can point me in the direction of a person/website/journal who can, then that would be great too.

Thanks so much in advance,

Liza Miller

[Anita Bensoussane]

Welcome, Liza. It sounds like an interesting thesis. I'm not sure exactly when changes first began to be made, but there had already been some alterations to the paperback versions of the late 1960s. For example, in my 1968 Five On a Treasure Island Knight paperback, the "King" has been altered to the "Queen". Currency updates took place in the early 1970s. Around the same time, or possibly slightly earlier, there were other small changes, e.g. jeans being substituted for a skirt, a scholarship simply being referred to as an exam and references to steam trains being removed (in some instances). Except for small details like that, relatively few alterations to Blyton books seem to have been made until 1987, when golliwogs began to be banished from the Noddy books. After that, other changes gradually started to creep in. Characters' names began to be modernised, clothes were updated, new foods were introduced and things that were deemed politically incorrect,like some gender depictions, were altered. The Famous Five series appears to have undergone updating more regularly than many other series, most recently in 2010 when the language was modernised yet again, some descriptions were slightly abridged and Nobby in Five Go Off in a Caravan became Ned (though Dick and Fanny remain). If you want to track the alterations in detail, the best thing to do would be to focus on two or three titles and obtain as many different editions from across the years as you can, so you can compare them. All the various printings are shown in the Cave of Books. Some books that would be particularly good for examining gender depictions are Five on a Treasure Island, Five Run Away Together, Five Go Off to Camp and Five Have Plenty of Fun.

[Enikyoga]

Hi everyone,

I'm a researcher currently writing a thesis on changing gender depictions in children's books. One of my focuses is on how publishing companies have made editorial changes - or 'updates' - to classics as they've been released in new editions. If anyone has any information about when any such changes occurred in the Famous Five series - such as the deletion of words no longer perceived to be politically correct, be them expressly relating to gender or not - I'd be really grateful. And if you don't have the information yourself, but think you can point me in the direction of a person/website/journal who can, then that would be great too.

Thanks so much in advance,

Liza Miller

Liza Miller, updating Enid Blyton's books has been in progress since the 1970s, although this habit picked steam with zeal in 1980s. Anita is correct in saying that The Famous Five series has undergone more editorial "updates" than any other Enid Blyton series. For instance, in my book, The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage, I cite some updates in Five Go Off To Camp. For example, in this book, George is described as being "black as a nigger with soot," as she is coming down a gravel-infested vent (in the first published edition of 1948, using a 1967 reprint). In the 1989 edition of that book, that sentence was changed to, "Down she came, as black as soot." In the 2001 edition of that book, the sentence was again changed to, "Down she came as black as night with soot."
Stephen Isabirye

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

Thre is barely a Blyton book in print which hasn't been interfered with in some way or another, and this is a subject I can talk about for hours...

In the first F5 Anne wants to take her dolls on holiday. Presumably they have now been changed to teddies because bears are acceptable to boys... I can (almost) understand why Dick no longer has Golliwogs, but this is bizarre.

The critics always critisize Anne for her love of playing house. No-one denies that food needs cooking, washing-up needs doing, yet why aren't Julian & Dick criticised for not doing enough? Not that they are idle; they fetch water and wood, and walk to buy food.

The most extreme case is The Surprising Caravan where the girl puts the two useless boys to bed whilst she gets on with the housework

Viv

[pete9012S]

This may seem obvious,but shouldnt Chorion make their changes transparent and available to all on their website and also explain the reason for the change,

If they feel they are right to change the books over the years,surely they should be honest and open about it???

[Anita Bensoussane]

I think that in many cases it has been left up to individual publishers to decide whether to update, and what to update. However, they no doubt have to seek approval from Chorion.

[Tony Summerfield]

Anita is making a very good point here, and one that a lot of people don't seem to realise. The changes are down to the individual publishers and not made by Chorion at all, although they do of course have to have Chorion's approval to do so. The most obvious recent example of changes are the Famous Five books that have just come out and I am aware that it was a costly business for Hodders to completely revise twenty-one Famous Five books. They wouldn't have done this at all unless the sales of the books were declining, and this revision has been made to attempt to improve sales with the current generation of book-buying children, most of whom would probably be unaware that the text had been changed and probably wouldn't care anyway so long as the book provided them with a good read.

[nina]

is there any way to find out the name of the actual person who did the rewrites? im assuming it would have been done by just one person to ensure consistency.. these behind the scenes people never get named, yet they would probably have a good opinion on it all

[Katharine]

I've been comparing a 1951 copy with a 2006 version of Five On A Hike Together and found relatively few changes. Most frequent is kit-bags replaced with rucksacks, and the currency has understandably been modernised, although as has been commented on elsewhere the amounts don't really seem to reflect inflation. I think the word 'queer' has been replaced with peculiar which I can understand. One change which I was interested in particularly was the word Elastoplast has been replaced with plaster, I wonder if that was because the person responsible thought modern children wouldn't recognise the word, or maybe they aren't allowed to mention particular brands?

A mistake from the original book where the wrong character name has been used has been rectified, but someone didn't proof read properly in the new version as one sentence reads "He went to the cellar steps and clattered down walking Dick and Julian" when it should be waking.

I haven't got a copy from the 1970s, but do have versions of other books from that era, and from what I remember some of them seemed to be updated just as much, if not more.

[Maggie Knows]

I was reading a fairly modern printing of Five Run Away Together very recently, and there is a reference to Mrs Stick cooking on a stove using gas paid for by George's parents (sorry, I havent got it with me and can't cite the page number).

Does anyone know if the fuel was coal in the original ? I would have thought that it was unlikely Kirrin was connected to the gas network in the 1940s ?

[Katharine]

I've got a 10th impression hardback from 1958 and it says gas in that . It's page 59 in my version which is the second page of Chapter 'Better News'

[Anita Bensoussane]

I was reading a fairly modern printing of Five Run Away Together very recently, and there is a reference to Mrs Stick cooking on a stove using gas paid for by George's parents... I would have thought that it was unlikely Kirrin was connected to the gas network in the 1940s ?

Perhaps the cooker ran on bottled gas?

[Maggie Knows]

Ah, calor gas, that's it then.

Maybe Kirrin Cottage had a range but then upgraded to a gas stove paid for with the gold found in Book 1.

[nina]

a good journal for gender depictions in F5 is 'five have a gender-ful time' by D.Rudd. hope this helps if you havent come across it already

[Moonraker]

HarperCollins is doing to Agatha Christie what we would all like to see done to Enid Blyton:

As of the beginning of this year, HarperCollins is proud to be Agatha Christie’s global publisher and we are reissuing all of her books in the US in beautiful new trade paperback editions. These wonderful authentic editions are exactly as Christie wrote them using the original UK texts. Now fans can read all of the Christie mysteries including the Hercule Poirot Mysteries, the Miss Marple Mysteries, and the Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries (coming Winter 2012). And you won't want to miss a single one of Christie’s stand-alone novels and short stories.

Christie fans can read all about it here.

More on the UK website here. Why doesn't Chorion or any of Blyton's publishers ask the same question?