Enid Blyton is British writer who published over 600 children's or juvenile books during her 40-year career. Blyton's most famous series was The Famous Five. Its central characters were Julian, Dick, Anne, George, and the dog Timmy. Her works celebrated good food, spirit of comradeship, and honesty. By the 1980s, Blyton's books had sold some 60 million copies and had been translated into nearly seventy languages.
"Anne saw some cows pulling at the grass in a meadow as they passed. 'It must be awful to be a cow and eat nothing but tasteless grass,' she called to George. 'Think what a cow misses - never tastes an egg and lettuce sandwich, never eats a chocolate aclair, never has a boiled egg - and can't even drink a glass of ginger-beer! Poor cows!'" (from Five Get Into Trouble, 1949)
Enid Mary Blyton was born on 11 August 1897 at 354 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London, the eldest child of Thomas Carey Blyton (1870 – 1920), a salesman of cutlery, and his wife, Theresa Mary, née Harrison (1874 – 1950). There were two younger brothers, Hanly (b. 1899), and Carey (b. 1902), who were born after the family had moved to the nearby suburb of Beckenham. From 1907 to 1915, Blaydon was educated at St. Christopher’s School in Beckenham, where she excelled at her Endeavour, leaving as head girl. She enjoyed physical activities along with the academic work, but not maths.
From her earliest childhood, Blyton had been schooled in the belief that she would eventually be a musician. However, she had also started to write and send stories, articles, and poems to various periodicals. Although her family thought, that most of her writing was a waste of time, she remained undaunted. Her first published poem, entitled 'Have You-?' - appeared in Nash's Magazine (1917).
Blyton's first book, Child Whispers (1922), was a collection of verse. This twenty-four-page work was followed by Real Fairies: Poems (1923), Responsive Singing Games (1923), The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies (1924), Songs of Gladness (1924), The Zoo Book (1924), and other books published by J. Saville and Newnes.
Blyton, who was trained as a kindergarten teacher at Ipswich High School, opened her own infants' school. When the literary commitments increased, Blyton devoted herself entirely to writing. In 1926 Blyton took on the editing a new magazine for children, Sunny Stories. Her stories, plays, and songs for Teachers' World were received with enthusiasms. She also compiled a children's encyclopedia, but it was not until in the 1930s, when her stories started to attract a wider audience.
In 1924 Blyton married Hugh Pollock, an editor of the book department of George Newnes. When she visited a gynecologist, she was told that she had a much underdeveloped uterus, equivalent to that of a young girl. Enid and Hugh moved soon to Elfin Cottage, a newly built house in Shortlands Road, Beckenham, which Blyton eventually called her first "real home". In 1929 they moved to "Old Thatch", a large sixteenth-century cottage, close to the River Thames at Bourne End in Buckinghamshire. The house, that was to be associated with Blyton for the rest of her life, was Green Hedges. It was built of red brick with black and white half-timbered gables, and situated in Beaconsfield, a small town about twenty-five miles from London.
In the mid-1930s Blyton experienced a spiritual crisis, but she decided not to convert to Roman Catholicism, because she had felt it was "too constricting". Although she rarely attended church services, she saw that her two daughters were baptized into the Anglican faith and went to the local Sunday School. Blyton's first full-length children's adventure book, The Secret Island, was published in 1938. This fast-moving story, woven around familiar characters, led to such series as The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, the Adventure series, the Mystery series, and the 'Barney' Mystery books.
During World War II, when publishing was restricted, Blyton managed to get her works printed. In the following decades she ruled the field of juvenile literature. Blyton could write 10,000 words a day, which enabled her to keep up her prodigious output. In 1940 eleven books were published under her name, including The Secret of Spiggy Holes, which had appeared earlier in serial form in Sunny Stories, Twenty-Minute Tales and Tales of Betsy May, both collections of short stories, The Children of Cherry Tree Farm, and a story book annual for the News Chronicle. The remainder were brought out by George Newnes, who continued as Blyton's main publisher. Under the pseudonym Mary Pollock she wrote Three Boys and a Circus and Children of Kidillin.
Blyton's marriage ended in 1942. Next year she married Kenneth Darrell Waters, a middle-aged surgeon. An exploding shell at the Battle of Jutland during First World War had permanently impaired his hearing, but helped with a hearing aid, he could pick up Blyton's speech. He was also genuinely interested in her work and they shared many interests in common, including gardening. According to Duncan McClaren, Blyton ridiculed her first husband in the character of PC Goon, a bumbling policeman in the Mystery series.
In 1945 Blyton decided to wind up her column for Teachers' World. Seven years later she withdrew from Sunny Stories. In 1953 appeared the first edition of Enid Blyton Magazine. Regular news was given for sponsored clubs. The Famous Five Club originated through a series of book about the 'Famous Five'. After the publication of the first story in 1942 a new title followed each year. The main object of the magazine was to help the young spastic children and the special centre in London.
In 1949 appeared Little Noddy Goes to Toyland, a story of a little toy man, who always ends up in trouble and has to seek help from his Toyland friends. Its sales exceeded expectations. Other Noddy books of various sizes and types followed in rapid succession. The stories were illustrated by Van Der Beek who died suddenly in Holland in 1953. 'Noddy' became a household name, the subject of music hall jokes and sketches. and the series also produced a play and a film.
In the 1950s and 1960s Blyton was attacked by critics. Moreover, librarians imposed sanctions on her writings owing to the books' limited vocabulary. The main target for anti-Blytons was Noddy, "the most egocentric, joyless, snivelling and pious anti-hero in the history of British fiction", as he was once called. Rumours were spread, that she did not write all her own works. The "banning" did not last long and eventually Blyton's ability to encourage children to read was recognized generally. At the end of the 1990s, well over 300 Blyton titles were still in print, including editions of the Famous Five stories linked to the popular television serialization (1995) and modern adventure games, also based on the Famous Five series.
Enid Blyton Magazine was closed in 1959. In the early sixties the author found it increasingly difficult to concentrate to writing. Her husband died in 1967. During the months that followed, her own illness grew progressively worse. Blyton died in her sleep on November 28, 1968, in a Hampsted nursing home. Although her books have been criticized for racism, sexism, and snobbishness, they have always found new readers from new generations.
"She was a child, she thought as a child and she wrote as a child," has the psychologist Michael Woods summarized the secret of her writing.
