Rob Houghton wrote:I think various people discover them! I've discovered a couple of books Tony didn't know existed...
It's usually by accident!
I had't yet replied to this, Rob, but I have given this quite a lot of thought. I know that one of the books that you found was the book club edition of
Five-Minute Tales, not sure about the other one but I am sure you will remind me! The point here is that it is a Blyton book that we already knew about and this was just an edition that I hadn't seen. I think you are right that possibly more books like this may turn up by accident, particularly paperbacks, there are already some that I suspect might exist.
However, books like
Toyland will not turn up by accident, they have no publisher, author or illustrator credited at all. They are only going to turn up by diligent detective work and there is only one person I know who has the knowledge to do this - and I don't mean myself as I seldom leave Salisbury now! I can see an article here so I am going to say little more about this period now. I will say that these books are from a workbook that goes up to 1926 and there are 30 Birn Brothers books listed in it, only 12 of which have turned up, so there are still 18 books that haven't.
From 1927 to 1932 things are different. 23 books have turned up from this period, but there is no existing workbook to go from, so we don't even know any titles until the books are 'discovered'! We know they are by Enid Blyton as from 1927 onwards almost all the books had her name in them. There is only one book where her name was on the cover,
Wake Up!, one or two where her name was on the title page,
The Wonderful Adventure, and all the rest simply have her name on the back page under the final poem or story. The Big clue here on missing books is that all these books are numbered in some way, and gaps in numbering can lead to other possibilities as most Birn books were issued in series of four.
The numbers can be found on the back cover, so giving just one example before this post gets too long and readers lose the will to live:-
Jolly Times (No. 130) (c. 1927) (10 X 7½) (62 pages)
Toys! For Girls and Boys (No. 131) (c. 1927) (10 X 7½) (62 pages)
The Wonderful Adventure (No. 133) (c. 1927) (10 X 7½) (62 pages)
It is almost certain that although we have no idea of the title, No. 132 is a Blyton book waiting to be discovered!!
One other thing to say, Birn Brothers didn't send any of these books to libraries, any information about them to reference books and they didn't even send a copy of each to Enid Blyton herself as there were none in her collection and none in the Darrell Waters archives.