Find-Outer Matters

[db105]

     There is one important exception to this: Prince Paul. He does not appear at all in the first book of the Secret series,

Interesting. I have not read the Secret series, except for book 1, which is really excellent. In fact I'm rereading it now, as preparation for reading the others in the series. So I'm not familiar with that Prince Paul yet.

Belatedly, I suppose Barney in the R Mysteries could be seen as another exception - that is, a character who joins the group later.

I have to disagree on that one. I'd say Barney is part of the group from the beginning, even if the other characters knew each other from earlier and only met Barney in the first book. It's the same situation with George from the Famous Five, and I wouldn't call her a late incorporation.

[Anita Bensoussane]

...it is not really until the third book - the sadly withdrawn "The Secret Mountain" (what a lot of nonsense around that) - that Prince Paul is really part of the group, but once he is, he remains there for the rest of the series.

Sadly, the whole series has now been withdrawn from publication - except for The Secret Island, which is marketed as a stand-alone novel. Hachette's page about the Secret series has this to say:

Reviewing and editing the text of Enid Blyton’s books has been an ongoing process, beginning in her own lifetime and continuing now and, we anticipate, into the future. At Enid Blyton Entertainment (owners of the Enid Blyton estate and copyright, and part of Hachette UK), our intention is to keep Enid Blyton’s books and stories at the heart of every childhood, as they have been for generations. To do so, we work to ensure that there are no offensive terms in the books – changing words where the definition is unclear in context and therefore the usage is confusing, and where words have been used in an inappropriate or offensive sense – while retaining the original language as far as is possible. This enables a very wide international audience of children to enjoy the books, while also understanding that they were written and set in the past.

Enid Blyton originally wrote five books about Jack and his friends Mike, Peggy and Nora. The first book, The Secret Island, published in 1938, is a remarkable survival story and was her first full-length children’s novel. The subsequent books, published in the 1940s and 1950s, introduce the children to a new friend, Prince Paul of Baronia, and are quite different in style, being more like her other adventure stories. The latter four books are no longer in print in the UK (or most other territories) as they would have needed extensive editing to align them with the standards above.

In new editions of Enid Blyton books, we do not change language for the sake of modernising it. The books’ period setting is part of their charm and is enjoyed by readers of all ages. Any historic changes previously made to new editions, which come under the category of ‘modernisation’ in this context, have been or are being restored to the original text at the point of reprint.

https://www.enidblyton.co.uk/landing-pa ... t-stories/


Personally, I think it's a shocking loss. Why not retain the original text but add a foreword to each book to make readers aware of the historical context? A short glossary could even be included if necessary, though I doubt Enid Blyton uses many words whose meaning can't be gathered from the context.

Going back to little details in the Find-Outers books, I'm always amused - but somewhat horrified - by what Fatty says in The Mystery of the Invisible Thief:

"Get away from that cake, Buster. Daisy, do stop him licking it all over. There'll be no icing left. Oh golly, now he's stepped on the buns."

A minute later, the children tuck in as hungrily as ever!

[db105]

Personally, I think it's a shocking loss.

I agree.

When Enid Blyton enters the public domain, we'll be free of publishers and their censoring, and all the books will be available again, in the original form, but it will be 15 years before that happens in most of the world, although her work is already in the public domain in Canada, which had a Lifetime + 50 years law. That's why you can find the original books, including the five books in the Secret series, as written by Enid Blyton, as ebooks in Fadedpage.

It's still copyrighted in the UK and most of the world, though, although I still use the Fadedpage original versions to compare against the copies I have when I suspect something has been edited and want to check what the original said.

[Courtenay]

Personally, I think it's a shocking loss. Why not retain the original text but add a foreword to each book to make readers aware of the historical context? A short glossary could even be included if necessary, though I doubt Enid Blyton uses many words whose meaning can't be gathered from the context.

I think that's awful too, whether it happens to Blyton or to any other author from the past. Why can't they simply do something similar to what some studios — I know Warner Bros. is an example — now do with their older cartoons: add a note at the start to point out that this is a product of its time, it may contain racial / gender stereotypes that may be offensive, but it's been left in its original form not to endorse those stereotypes, but because it would be wrong to pretend that those attitudes never existed?

It's actually quite instructive for young readers to encounter "dated" depictions that wouldn't be acceptable in today's world, and then they can think about these things — maybe discuss them with their parents or teachers — and reflect on questions like: what does this say about society at the time this was written? How have attitudes towards race, gender roles etc. changed since then — and why? I know I've said many times in discussions here that when I was a child, I reacted negatively to some of the gender stereotypes (girls stay home and do the cooking and cleaning while the boys have the most exciting adventures) that I encountered in uncensored Blyton stories and other older literature. And my parents (who were children themselves in the 1950s when these books were new) explained to me straight out: that really was how a lot of people thought in those days. It made me realise from a very early age how lucky I was to be growing up as a girl in a society and family that had a far less restrictive view of what girls "should" and "shouldn't" do!

Going back to little details in the Find-Outers books, I'm always amused - but somewhat horrified - by what Fatty says in The Mystery of the Invisible Thief:

"Get away from that cake, Buster. Daisy, do stop him licking it all over. There'll be no icing left. Oh golly, now he's stepped on the buns."

A minute later, the children tuck in as hungrily as ever!

Oh dear, I don't think I took much notice of that when I first read that story... I wonder if that detail has also been removed in modern editions, lest children get the idea that it's OK to eat food that a dog has licked and/or stepped on?? I mean, stories like this are a threat to young people's health and hygiene standards, obviously...

[Hannah]

It's still in the Kindle edition.

[timv]

I suppose the publishers decided to 'cut their losses' on a potentially problematic series by getting rid of the whole 'run' except the fairly uncontroversial first book, but it smacks of a mixture of panic and bureaucratic caution rather than thinking things through carefully - all too typical of 'top-down' decisions nowadays and the concentration on 'image'. Technically, the setting and context of Moon Castle are in the UK and the storyline is similar in parts to Five Get Into A Fix, but if books 2 to 4 had been omitted then readers would be asking who Prince Paul and his family were. Spiggy Holes is a particular loss given its exciting plot , even if I suppose Mr Diaz is a bit of a 'Mysterious Foreign Baddie' who might put worried PC executives off (though very much in line with 1930s spy/ crime thrillers and similar to characters in other 'Ruritanian' 1920s and 1930s children's books). The Arnolds are a husband and wife team of risk-taking pilots who operate together and run risks together so I would have thought they would be OK as 'good anti-sexist role models' - probably based on Jim and Amy (Johnson) Mollison who were in the news for their daring air trips in the mid-late 1930s.

It seems a bit suspicious to me that all the books featuring a Royal Family - and a Prince as a leading character - and 'dodgy foreigners' (Mr Diaz the slightly stereotyped kidnapper, a Lost African Tribe who practise human sacrifice, and a ruffianly band of Central/ Eastern European bandits living in a remote mountain range). This sounds like avoiding potential accusations of more Blyton stereotypes of overseas characters by a panicking executive who had no real idea of the context, rather than a proper and reasoned examination of the books - which are of course 'of their time' and the 1930s at that, and show interesting signs of influence from contemporary films and earlier books which were popular with children when Enid was young (eg the Rider Haggard books and their films influence on Mountain, especially 'King Soloman's Mines', and the influence of John Buchan, Anthony Hope's 'Prisoner of Zenda' etc on the kidnapping of Prince Paul and later on the portrayal of Baronia).

An introduction could easily have been put in for each book treating it as a historical artefact and showing how it reflects 1930s culture and attitudes, and readers would clearly see that the series was not in any way full of 'racist stereotypes' or of Enid being too fond or Royal characters and heroic white explorers not Worthy Marginalised People and Oppressed Victims of Imperlalism. It's rather depressing, but all too typical of the simplistic attitudes of senior executives and their company spin-doctors .

[GloomyGraham]

Which other author has been 'cancelled' as much as Enid?

I mean the 'Secret Series' (after Book 2) are hardly Enid's finest works, but....

Yes, one of Agatha Christie's novels had to have its' title changed a number of times. but I can't remember any author having as many changes to their text (even character names, for God's sake) as much as Blyton's work by her publishers.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Ironically, Enid has been edited the most because her books have remained so popular with children, decade after decade. I believe children would still enjoy them as they were written, if only they were given the chance. As we've said, publishers could always include a foreword to explain the historical context where necessary, and perhaps even add a short glossary in some cases.

When I was young, I revelled in older books as I loved the sense of history. Enid Blyton didn't seem particularly old-fashioned to me because I was reading the books in the 1970s, but I still enjoyed the slight quaintness of words and phrases like "poker", "motor-car", "goloshes" and "You are a brick!" Other authors like E. Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mrs. O. F. Walton, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Susan Coolidge, Mark Twain, Johanna Spyri and L. M. Montgomery were further in the past, but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to read modernised versions of their work (I read Johanna Spyri in translation, of course, but the flavour of the period seemed to have been retained). I loved these old-fashioned books exactly as they were, enjoying the stories and picking up a lot of history in the process. I'd have felt cheated if some well-meaning 1970s editor had made Mary Lennox bounce around the secret garden on a space hopper!

The Secret Mountain was one of my favourite Enid Blyton books. It swept me into a different world and I loved the unfamiliar setting and the high excitement and danger. I found The Secret of Killimooin and The Secret of Moon Castle thrilling too. They seemed fresher and less predictable than many of the Famous Five titles.

Going back to the Find-Outers books, they contain all kinds of outrageous things - but that's part of the fun! They're not meant to be taken too seriously and I'm glad they've survived (albeit with slight edits, which is a pity) and haven't met with the same fate as the Secret series.

[GloomyGraham]

I can understand publishers maybe changing a word like 'queer' to 'strange; Or even changing prices/pocket money from a shilling to a pound,

But things like changing 'Bessie' to 'Beth' is pretty ridiculous/ Old names often come back into fashion.

[Yak]

They were changing to pounds and not shillings even when I was a child and I hated it. I always liked to read the originals and learn about old money. I learned most of what I know about pre decimal currency from Blyton's books!

[Bertie]

Which other author has been 'cancelled' as much as Enid?

I mean the 'Secret Series' (after Book 2) are hardly Enid's finest works, but....

Yes, one of Agatha Christie's novels had to have its' title changed a number of times. but I can't remember any author having as many changes to their text (even character names, for God's sake) as much as Blyton's work by her publishers.

I'm convinced a big reason why Enid gets it more is mostly 'reverse snobbery' because of her 'posh' main characters than anything else.

Every writer from Enid's era and before can be 'problematic' in terms of issues being addressed, language and tone used, etc, when judged in modern times. However many of them come from the working class viewpoint, attacking the rich and powerful, etc. So they seem to get an easier ride in terms of 'ah, well, that was the terminology of the time, but their hearts in the right place'.

Whereas Enid is portrayed as speaking more for the elite and being a snob, so she doesn't get any benefit of the doubt and just gets cast as a privileged bigot and so, increasingly, people seem to love looking for anything to find fault with in her views and language - which forces her books to be much edited or out of print completely.

[Anita Bensoussane]

The posts about searching the forums for Find-Outers (and other) topics have been moved to a thread of their own:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9465