Customer Reviews

Enid Blyton: The Biography

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If you grew up in England from the '40s to the '80s, you will probably have read many Enid Blyton books. She was the world's most prolific and successful children's novelist (more so than J K Rowling, on many counts). Her books of rather upper class children who somehow managed to get away for a hiking or caravan holiday on their own, and solve mysteries usually involving secret passages are exquisitely written. But her personal life reflected the child-like world which she was such a genius at depicting through her books. I thought this book was well-researched, gave a very balanced view of Enid Blyton and threw new light on her many enigmas. Recommended.

Enid Blyton has been ridiculed by librarians worldwide. Fortunately those who matter - children - think otherwise and, judging by the way in which they react to her writing, love her. Barbra Stoney's biography of this children's author is insightful and extremely interesting, offering a detailed look at who Enid was and the manner in which she wrote. It is evident that events in her life had a profound effect on her writing. Her difficult relationship with her mother and the traumatic effect of her parent's divorce bear testimony to this.

An excellent read, if you can get a copy that is.

Let me start by saying that I do not buy into the criticism that Enid Blyton and her books are subject to.
I think first it would be interesting to compare her work with the reading material for children at the time she started. It may be the case that her vocabulary was limited but, really, could it be otherwise? Was it expected that she wrote posh english for children? I do not think so. What one would expect was error free written english.
I am not saying her books are flawless but with all their faults they were the starting point for young people who then went on to become more demanding readers. This is a point which is often overlooked. That is, people assume that young readers, or any readers for that matter, never make any sort of progress and become more choosy about what they read.
In my personal case, and I am basically thinking of the Famous 5, they were a source of great pleasure. Being cheap, they were almost the only contact I had with books when I was, say, 12 or 13. Not much later I was reading John Steinbeck, for instance.
Having said this, I confess I was clearly disappointed with the present biography.
Being an authorized biography, one of Blyton's daughters chose the author and made material available, it is not surprising that certain dark passages in the subject's life are treated too lightly. However I would like to know whether the claim "Blyton ensured he was unable to find work in publishing afterward" after Blyton's divorce and about her former husband, made in her Wikipedia page is true or not.
The biography is highly detailed as far as numbers, publishers, appendices and so on are concerned, too much detailed in my opinion, however very little is said about the origin of her most famous work, the Famous 5 series. I was expecting to learn a lot about how she was led to form that children group plus the dog, if there was a real island which inspired her, was there a real scientist?... Instead we are basically told that George might have had Enid as a model.
There are also some loose ends. If I remember well we do not know what happened to Mabel Attenborough, someone of great importance in her life. It is possible that no reliable sources on some matters exist but then the reader should be informed.
Enid Blyton was an influential figure. Only in Portugal I can think of of 3 series of books, by different authors, that follow the Famous 5 pattern. And some of them sell extremely well.
Even with all the drawbacks I touched upon, I still think this biography is a must for those whose childhood was made brighter due to Ms Blyton's books.

I read many Enid Blyton books when I was a child so I was rather interested in this woman who was such am incredibly prolific writer. I read some material about her on the internet which suggested that she was a less than stellar wife and mother and that there was some controversy surrounding the refusal of many librarians to shelf her books. This piqued my interest further and I bought this book to learn more.

Unfortunatly, I was ultimately a bit disappointed. The problem, I think, is that this book was originally written back in 1974 - only 6 years after Blyton's death - and the current edition merely is updated with some further diary material that subsequently came to light. Accordingly, while the book does tell the bare facts of Blyton's life and, to be fair, does touch upon some of the more controversial aspects, it is a rather tame production on the whole. I can't say I was expecting a tell-all 'Mommie Dearest' type of thing but the result here was less riveting than I might have liked.