Enid Blyton

Lore & Background

Enid Blyton was born on 11 August 1897 in East Dulwich, south London, the eldest of three children, to Thomas Carey Blyton and Theresa Mary (née Harrison). She had two younger brothers, Hanly and Carey. Her father left the family shortly after her 13th birthday.

Blyton did not attend her mother's funeral; it is unclear whether she attended her father's funeral. She trained as a teacher and began writing in her spare time. Her first book, Child Whispers, a 24-page collection of poems, was published in 1922. She went on to build a literary empire, sometimes producing fifty books a year.

Her work became controversial from the 1950s for its unchallenging nature and themes, and some libraries and schools banned her works. The BBC refused to broadcast her stories from the 1930s until the 1950s. She encouraged readers to support worthy causes through clubs she set up or supported.

Reader's Guide

Blyton's writing was unplanned and sprang largely from her unconscious mind; she typed her stories as events unfolded before her. She felt she had a responsibility to provide her readers with a strong moral framework. Her books have been criticised as elitist, sexist, racist, xenophobic, and at odds with the more progressive environment emerging in post-World War II Britain, but updated versions have continued to be popular since her death in 1968. The story of her life was dramatised in Enid, a BBC television film featuring Helena Bonham Carter, first broadcast in the U.K. on BBC Four in 2009.

Final works

In the 1960s, Blyton's series such as Noddy and The Famous Five remained highly successful; by 1962, 26 million copies of Noddy had been sold. She concluded several long-running series in 1963, publishing the last Famous Five book, Five Are Together Again, and the last Secret Seven book, Fun for the Secret Seven. That year she also produced three more Brer Rabbit books with illustrator Grace Lodge: Brer Rabbit Again, Brer Rabbit Book, and Brer Rabbit's a Rascal. In 1962 many of her books were among the first released in paperback by Armada Books, making them more affordable.

After 1963, her output shifted mainly to short stories and books for very young readers, such as Learn to Count with Noddy and Learn to Tell Time with Noddy (1965), and Stories for Bedtime and the Sunshine Picture Story Book collection (1966). Her declining health and a drop in readership among older children are thought to be the main reasons for this change. Her last Noddy book, Noddy and the Aeroplane, was published in February 1964. In May 1965 she released Mixed Bag, a songbook with music by her nephew Carey, and in August of that year her last full-length books appeared: The Man Who Stopped to Help and The Boy Who Came Back.