A new biography of this author, starring Helena Bonham Carter, is to shortly to be broadcast on BBC Four. I was amazed to learn that, for 30 years or so, her work was banned by the BBC - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8361056.stm - the panjandrums there considering that her work was childish and of no literary merit.

Well, it's many years since I read Blyton, but my recollection of her work was that it was most enjoyable - even if it wasn't of Shakespearian depth. Childish, of course - but isn't that what one would expect when one considers her readership was children?

I believe that the criticism of her work (and it wasn't only the Beeb that didn't like it - many schools didn't like Blyton) was simply based on her critics' looking at her output with adult eyes; in the eyes of most children her work was excellent. She wouldn't have become the best-selling children's author she was (most sources suggest she wrote around 800 books), had children not enjoyed reading her.

What is the US view of Enid Blyton? Is she/was she a popular author there?

Since CW is a children's librarian, she'd probably be able to provide a better answer. I haven't heard of her. Shu and I were always very active in selecting books for our kids so if she were popular, I'd think we'd know about her.

I have never heard of her either, but this Wikipedia article says she is one of the most translated authors in the world and hugely popular in the UK and Commonwealth countries around the world. I scanned the list of titles and hadn't heard of a single one. I should add that my mother was a children's librarian at the main Cincinnati library in the '30s and '40s and always selected great books to read to us or for us to read. It almost seems as if she wasn't published in the U.S. and that we Americans were cheated out of a good juvenile read as kids! Guess we'll have to read them now.

Wordmatic

Interesting that she wasn't popular in the USA, the more so since her works wouldn't even have needed much translation.

Some of the concepts she wrote of might have been a little strange to US minds - but not so strange as to be unintelligible.

Which makes me wonder whether her near contemporary, Richmal Crompton, another hugely popular children's author - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmal_Crompton - was sold in the USA. Like Enid Blyton's her characters were solidly rooted in the class-divided Britain of the mid-twentieth century, whose beliefs and values were not necessarily familiar to other countries.

Not such a surprise, I'd say. In recent years her work has come to be seen as rather twee and middle class, even by the English. I recall reading the Famous Five and Secret Seven books when I was very young and although I enjoyed them well enough, even then I felt that the lives of these children had no connection with my life. I'm not talking about their encounters with smugglers and villains and the stuff of the plots, I'm talking about the "ginger-beer and cakes" atmosphere that pervades the books.
Enid Blyton's books inhabit a world that has less connection with reality than Hogwarts. If they have, or even had, little resonance with most children here it would be astonishing if they had any resonance with US children.

The surge of misplaced nostalgia has prompted me to start a series of posts over on my blog. The first, if anyone is interested, is about Enid Blyton and the Famous Five.

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Enid Blyton's books inhabit a world that has less connection with reality than Hogwarts.

Hogwarts? Remind me, isn't that something to do with Harry Potter? And isn't that series one of the best-selling children's tales of all time?

I believe that children's ability to suspend disbelief is a wonderful thing; it's a shame that adults seem often to spend a great deal of time and effort trying to eliminate children's sense of wonder.

I have an idea - why doesn't someone write a book about a young girl who follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole and finds herself in a land where everything is different from her own experience. No? Maybe not. It'll never sell.

I never met anybody with quite such a talent for missing the point.

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I never met anybody with quite such a talent for missing the point. Smile

I think the point you were making was that many of the children who read Enid Blyton's books didn't live in, or even know about, the middle-class suburbs - ginger-beer and cakes or no. And that this being the case, her books would have "...little resonance with most children here ...".

But her books did and I suspect, still do "resonate with children". You admitted you enjoyed them when you were a child, even though the "Blyton children" had no connection with your lifestyle, and you did not grow up in the leafy suburbs of Buckinghamshire.

If that is not the point then I fear I have missed it.

It's part of the point, but not the main part.
The main point is that the Enid Blyton books are ostensibly set in the "real world" while the Harry Potter books are clearly and demonstrably set in something that isn't the real world where there is a parallel society of witches and wizards, a Ministry of Magic, dragons, dementors and all manner of stuff that isn't real.
In spite of this because of the way the characters behave, the interactions between them and the general portrayal of the background world there is a greater connection with reality in the Harry Potter books than there is in the Enid Blyton ones.

I suspect that the initial popularity of the books was due to the escape to an unreal world where four kids and a dog could live in a perpetual summertime and have jolly spiffing adventures in which nobody ever suffered as much as a bruised knee and everybody had lashings of ginger beer. In the final years of the war and the years that immediately followed this may have seemed quite appealing.

On the other hand I'd argue that the way that they reflect a society that never really existed is a good deal further divorced from reality than Hogwarts is.

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On the other hand I'd argue that the way that they reflect a society that never really existed is a good deal further divorced from reality than Hogwarts is.

Well, there I do differ. Hogwarts has never existed and nothing remotely like it has ever existed.

Blyton's world might have been idealised (a bit like Wodehouse's) but there were people around who lived lives very similar to those portrayed by both authors. That they were undoubtedly a privileged minority may be true, but they did exist - unlike the wizards, warlocks and mystical beasts of Harry Potter's world.

If you consider that Blyton's world is further divorced from reality than is Hogwarts, then I can only suggest that our ideas of what constitutes reality must differ significantly.

In some ways I can agree with Richard. As a kid I used to devour books by Frank Richards (the Greyfriars/Billy Bunter books). They were set in public (Americans read private) schools in some sort of upper-class Edwardian idyll. They world they described was totally unlike the real world, apart from that of a privileged few. At the time I had little difficulty identifying with the characters. I imagine they've dated even more nowadays, and would be impenetrable to today's (state) schoolchildren.

I have just finished watching the BBC biography, which was very well done as is usually the case with such BBC offerings.

Enid Blyton seems to have been rather a sad person who couldn't relate well to adults and preferred to live in a children's world. Which is probably why her books were so well received by children. Even today, more than thirty years after she died, her books are still selling around 8 million copies a year.

Enid Blyton's output, although massive at around 800 books, was dwarfed by that of Billy Bunter writer Frank Richards (a pseudonym - his real name was Charles Harold St. John Hamilton) who wrote 100 million words or the equivalent of 1,200 books - probably the most prolific author of all time.

I am still amazed to learn that Enid Blyton's work is unknown in the USA - not even Noddy and Big Ears!

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I believe that children's ability to suspend disbelief is a wonderful thing; it's a shame that adults seem often to spend a great deal of time and effort trying to eliminate children's sense of wonder.

Oh, come now. Hansel and Gretal? Cinderella? Alice in Wonderland? Winnie the Pooh? The Three Bears? The Three Little Pigs? Paddington? The list goes on and on, and at least the parents I know have always supported the imagination of children.

As for not being known in America, let me jiggle CW's elbow. Perhaps she is known and WM and I have just missed it. CW is a children's librarian, so she should know.

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and at least the parents I know have always supported the imagination of children.

I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear. The adult activity I am referring to occurs in later childhood, at around the time of transition from primary to secondary school. Play-acting is all too often denigrated at that sort of age, since many adults are then expecting children to "grow up" and grown-up behaviour does not include believing in fairies, magic and Santa Claus.

I am not suggesting that adults should actively encourage belief in myth, mystique and mumbo jumbo (although many seem to do a pretty good job of that when it comes to indoctrination of children with their own particular brand of religion). What I am suggesting is that adults should not make fun of children's imaginative creations and beliefs, simply because they believe it is time that they "grew up".

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What I am suggesting is that adults should not make fun of children's imaginative creations and beliefs, simply because they believe it is time that they "grew up".

And I don't know any who do, Richard.

I certainly do - and have met a few.

I recall when, in the first form of secondary school (I was eleven) our English master, Dr Bean, set us homework. We had to write an essay on "The most exciting adventure story I have ever read" and I chose Enid Blyton's "The Island of Adventure" - which I still think was about the right level for my age. (I will say I was maybe a little behind on my fiction reading levels since I tended to read far more non-fiction.)

Anyway, I wrote my essay and was called up in front of the class to be castigated as to why I had chosen to write on such a childish book. Not having the gift of debate that I later acquired, and being rather afraid of Dr Bean's gowned figure, I said nothing - but 56 years later I can still remember the feelings of inadequacy that nasty man had created in me.