The Enid Blyton Society

And the woman behind with white hair looks like Barbara Stoney.

I've already commented on the articles by Fred Clampitt and David Chambers, which I turned to first after reading the Editorial, but I also found John Henstock's piece - 'Thank Goodness for Enid Blyton!' - very interesting. It wasn't until I was an adult that I discovered that Carolyn Keene, who supposedly wrote the Nancy Drew series, had never existed, with the books having been written by various authors over the years. The same applies to Lucy Daniels, whose name appears on the covers of many of the "animal" books which John Henstock mentions are aimed mainly at girls. Interesting point about there possibly being a market for Enid Blyton stories in comic-strip form. Cartoon-style books are certainly popular at the moment. I'm sure not everyone would agree though!

I enjoyed Angela Canning's look at the wonderful Enid Blyton's Nature Lover's Book, especially her little "asides" in parentheses, and I agree with Julie Heginbotham that The Treasure Hunters is "one of the best single stories that Enid wrote." The Hilda Rice letters about the Modern Teaching illustrations allow us a rare glimpse of Enid as Editor and it was great to be able to read them, though I must admit I've never seen the Modern Teaching volumes.

John Lester's article taught me a lot about the uncollected adventures of Tumpy and I love his sentence about the way illustrator Dorothy Wheeler brings the caravan to life: "The caravan, wilful and childishly petulant at times, conveys by its mouth and eyes the expressions of glee, concern, pain and fear under Dorothy M. Wheeler's expert pen." Dorothy Wheeler did a great deal of artwork for Enid Blyton books and her drawings invariably capture the mood of the stories perfectly.

Robert Houghton's very thorough article reminded me that Three Boys and a Circus is one of only a few of my childhood Blyton books that I haven't yet re-read as an adult. I think you're right, Robert, that the stories in the Mary Pollock books are lacking in character development, although they are varied and contain some exciting plot elements. Personally, though, I don't consider Circus Days Again to be a "rather weak addition to the Galliano series." It's actually my favourite of the trilogy, with dark days coming to Galliano's Circus and plenty of tension and drama. The two earlier books do capture that lovely heartwarming feeling of a circus community, which is upset in Circus Days Again, but I find the first book in particular rather tame.

Thanks, Tony, for yet another bumper read!

Anita Bensoussane wrote:
Robert Houghton's very thorough article reminded me that Three Boys and a Circus is one of only a few of my childhood Blyton books that I haven't yet re-read as an adult. I think you're right, Robert, that the stories in the Mary Pollock books are lacking in character development, although they are varied and contain some exciting plot elements. Personally, though, I don't consider Circus Days Again to be a "rather weak addition to the Galliano series." It's actually my favourite of the trilogy, with dark days coming to Galliano's Circus and plenty of tension and drama. The two earlier books do capture that lovely heartwarming feeling of a circus community, which is upset in Circus Days Again, but I find the first book in particular rather tame.

I recently read the four circus books in German, in "Come to the circus" they left out the part of Fenella talking to her aunt who's going to leave for Canada, but they added a chapter with the two children of the three Galliano books (Lotta and Jimmy with Lucky) to justify this as one series. I suppose I still have to read the three Galliano books in English, maybe I'll find copies at the EB day...

Wolfgang wrote:I recently read the four circus books in German, in "Come to the circus" they left out the part of Fenella talking to her aunt who's going to leave for Canada, but they added a chapter with the two children of the three Galliano books (Lotta and Jimmy with Lucky) to justify this as one series.

It's a pity the German editors felt the need to tag Come to the Circus! onto the Galliano's Circus series. It's quite different in tone from the Galliano's Circus books, very solemn and thought-provoking in places, with the surprisingly grown-up theme of Lou struggling to come to terms with the death of her young daughter, and I think the impact of the story could be lost by trying to adapt it to fit another series.

It's a sad fact that publishers and copyright holders always work on the premise that series sell better than one-off books. The result being that a book such as The Boy Next Door will now always be considered as part of The Young Adventurers series and it will never be published again in its original form. They tried to scoop up more one-off stories in a series called The Fabulous Four, but it wasn't as successful as The Young Adventurers (Riddle) series.

Tony Summerfield wrote:The result being that a book such as The Boy Next Door will now always be considered as part of The Young Adventurers series and it will never be published again in its original form.

That's a shame. That's a really lovely well written book. I love it. And I'm glad I've got one of the original works.

I am sure you are probably aware, Julie, but The Treasure Hunters has suffered the same fate as it is also in The Young Adventurers series!

And there are 4 more stand-alone books in The Young Adventurers series!

I am glad I have all of them in their stand-alone books though I assume their texts have been revised.Mine are all hardbacks from 1969 onwards except Holiday House and Strange Ruby.

I too am glad that I have all those lovely stand alone novels as they were written by Enid. Not only has the text and the children involved changed, but along the titles I notice, looking at them all in the Cave of Books. The Treasure Hunters is - The Hidden Treasure. Also the Strange Ruby and Hollow Tree House have had a change of title. How sad.

On thing that has me puzzled so maybe Tony can answer this one. Why are they in the Young Adventurers, and also The Riddle Series. Or has one series finished now and you can only buy the other series.

Julie2owlsdene wrote:One thing that has me puzzled so maybe Tony can answer this one. Why are they in the Young Adventurers, and also The Riddle Series. Or has one series finished now and you can only buy the other series.

Hope I'll do instead of Tony! When the series first came out, each book was called The Riddle of... A few years later the series was rereleased with each book retitled, being called The Young Adventurers and... The current publishers (Award) have reverted to The Riddle of... but still have "The Young Adventurers" written on a band across the bottom of every cover.

Thanks Anita. Of course 'you'll do'

At least the books are still available for everyone to buy, even if they are missing out on some really good stand alone novels by Enid.

i got mine a few days ago i kept meaning to post that i had got it, but i kept forgetting as soon as i got it i was off to read it, i really enjoyed it, thanks Tony!


Leila. (and Debbie!)

Tony Summerfield wrote:It's a sad fact that publishers and copyright holders always work on the premise that series sell better than one-off books. The result being that a book such as The Boy Next Door will now always be considered as part of The Young Adventurers series and it will never be published again in its original form. They tried to scoop up more one-off stories in a series called The Fabulous Four, but it wasn't as successful as The Young Adventurers (Riddle) series.

Maybe the English editors took the German Schneiderbuchverlag as an example. Schneider publishes a series called Tina und Tini as Enid Blyton books, but they doesn't say within the books on which book it is based. The first two books of this series are "The treasure hunters" and "The boy next door", and the third book has many similarieties to "The Pole Star Family", but it's expanded with a robbery plot similar to Voilier's "Les cinq contre le masque noir", also published by Schneider some years ago. The following eleven books are probably not based on any Blyton book.
Schneider had also published four of the family books as "Pimpernells", they didn't include "The seaside family" and "The Queen Elizabeth Family", but published "Seaside" as a stand-alone novel. I haven't come across a German "Queen Elizabeth" novel yet. To make things even more confusing two fo the family books were published as "Hoppers", with a more elaborate translation than the Pimpernell books. Quite confusing, Gah!, as one more or less well-known policeman would say...

We often get Viv complaining about the books published in English under the Blyton name that weren't written by her, but this number is small compared to the output in Germany where numerous books have been published with the name Enid Blyton on them that have nothing to do with her at all!

Tony Summerfield wrote:We often get Viv complaining about the books published in English under the Blyton name that weren't written by her, but this number is small compared to the output in Germany where numerous books have been published with the name Enid Blyton on them that have nothing to do with her at all!

Unfortunately it's not just books, Tony, it's audioplays as well. Europa (Sony) is publishing several new Famous Five audioplays per year, the first 21 were the ones by Blyton, the following 8 by Voilier and the rest complete new stories with not much spirit of the Famous Five with love. I think they're by volume 86 or so, so go figure. And Sarah Bosse has started to write books about them, 19 have been published, book 60 is not announced yet (22 by Blyton and 18 by Voilier +19 Bosse). They also started continuing the St Clare's series which has already been extended by German writers before. Some days ago they published also a new book, a "special" volume in which some boys will attend St Clare's. I haven't read it yet, but I ordered it. I just hope the book is better than the audioplay in which also some boys were taught at St Clares.