Another inescapable point about Enid Blyton’s writing is its strong upper-middle-class bias. Vague mention is made of ‘Cook’, the children are shown in one drawing arriving in a chauffeur-driven car, and other minions are always at hand to arrange things for them, without any hint of worldly remuneration. The children adopt a superior attitude, not only to the crooks, but also to the cooks of the world, and Enid Blyton tosses this off casually as though it is the only right and natural order of things.
Apart from its convenience in so many ways, for instance, being on hobnobbing terms with police inspectors and being able to conjure up impossible things like horse-drawn caravans and helicopters, this superior setting carries much weight with the young readers, in rather the same way that having army officers drawn from the upper echelons of society is supposed to inspire confidence in the troops. It does so by subtly adding to the fantasy element of the story, and with a few deft strokes places it well and truly beyond the experience of the majority of her readers.
Enid Blyton encourages the judgement of others by superficialities. Everybody is most clearly labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘us’ or ‘them’ in the author’s own old-fashioned stereotype. Crooks always have rough voices, and are humourless and incredibly stupid. The children are always polite and nice to each other, they are always laughing – especially at others less fortunate than themselves. In the Mountain of Adventure which is set in Wales, the local people seem to say nothing else but ‘Look you, whateffer’ and nearly choke them selves on food. In The Six Bad Boys which is a rare and unsuccessful attempt at social realism, Enid’s own obvious middle-class prejudices are even more in evidence:
Bob, a middle-class boy from a broken home, meets up with a delinquent gang of working-class boys. ‘None of the boys was very clever,’ she writes. ‘Patrick [as ‘a wild Irish boy’] had a streak of cunning that the gang found useful’ … When Bob met the gang their leader Fred … rose to the occasion. He had sized up Bob at once – a boy a bit above them in station … (and later) ‘All four boys admired Bob and liked him, and because he was better dressed than they were and came from a better home they were proud to have him share their cellar.’
Another primary attraction is the inevitable inclusion of a strong animal interest. Of course the animals are usually dogs, and, in fact one of the ‘Famous Five’ in the series of that name is actually ‘Timmy’, George’s dog. Like all Blyton animals he always appears to know exactly what is going on and ‘woofs’ in the appropriate places. Even more fantastic is ‘KikI’, a parrot in the ‘Adventure’ series, who comments on and takes part in everything that happens. This imputation of human attributes to animals appeals to children, because it is something that they secretly believe to be true anyway. For adults though, this is one of the most infuriating aspects of Enid Blyton’s writing, not merely because it is patronising, but because it seems a deliberate attempt on the author’s part to cash in on children’s gullibility, and perpetuate a lie.
We have now established some of the ingredients of the successful ‘Blyton’ formula: superior social status, the absence of anything that smacks of the work-a-day world, the high fantasy level and the strong animal interest. These factors have played a large part in establishing Enid Blyton’s success but they would hardly be enough without a very good and usually well-written story. There are naturally enough a few rough corners and hurriedly patched up endings, the suspense though is admirably controlled and is exciting often at times even at an adult level.
Some critics observed, not without justification considering Enid Blyton’s phenomenal output and variety of styles, that the books were written by a syndicate following a formula much as we have described above. This may be true, but it does not really help with an explanation. Each Blyton book carries the inimitable ‘Blyton’ stamp just as it bears her babyish signature with those coy dots beneath. For me Enid Blyton is a real person. No syndicate would allow itself to exhibit such foibles. The secret of success lies not in calculated exploitation by a cynical adult or adults of a vast number of gullible children. I do not honestly believe she was clever enough for that. She was, I am sure, really a child at heart, a person who never developed emotionally beyond the basic infantile level.
‘Mother, Mother!’ the typical Enid Blyton adventure story is rarely without this familiar evocation in its first few lines, and of course there is dear old Mummy (never ‘Mum’ you may observe) ready at hand to offer succour and attention in abundance. Often the request is for food and Mother chides good naturedly but abundantly, ‘Darling, you have only just had your breakfast.’ Mother is suitably faceless and universal. The food is more reminiscent of an orgy in an Edwardian emporium than a modern child’s idea of a good ‘blow-out’. Enid Blyton writes of tongues, ham, pies, lemonade and ginger-beer. This is not just food, it is archetypal feasting, the author’s longing for the palmy days of her own childhood.
It is in these opening lines that the author catches the child’s imagination to prepare it for the adventure ahead. Once a firm home base is established, once the young reader sees that the writer has her priorities right, he can follow her through the most improbable hair-raising deeds. It parallels the young child’s need to cling to its mother in a strange environment, emerging only gradually to explore its new surroundings and fleeing back to its mother at the first sign of danger. But Enid Blyton never goes too far, the children are wrapped in a cocoon of middle-class niceness, which demands respect from even the beastliest villain. There is never any real threat to the children, no upsetting fears or panicky terrors; it is all so nicely under control.
Another interesting feature of these opening chapters is that Enid Blyton often has the father killed off or maimed in some way before the book opens; those who survive the massacre are inevitably amiable, pipe-smoking buffoons, as harmless as toothless tigers. An exception is George’s father, ‘Uncle Quentin’, who is a rather irritable scientist, but he is never very much in evidence. When it is necessary to introduce a man, he is typically a walking compendium of everything within, but in all other ways a complete goon.
Bill Cunningham of the ‘Adventure’ series is a good example. He is actually a policeman, not your ordinary ‘copper’ of course, but something referred to mysteriously as ‘high-up’. In another series, ‘The Secret Seven’, the children’s mentor is also a policeman; this time an Inspector. Such characters help the plot along by enabling the author to cut corners and get crooks arrested and jailed in a paragraph. The policeman of course also symbolises super-authority and one word of praise for the children is enough: (‘Well done you kids, we have had half the police force in the country looking for this little lot.’) Care is taken however to keep this potentially threatening authority figure well into the background for most of the time and he is usually shown as tolerant and thoroughly non-threatening: one of Enid Blyton’s most obvious failings is that she cannot handle men.
(By the way, here is a puzzle for the cynically minded. What exactly is Bill Cunningham’s relationship to the widowed Mrs Mannering? Does he arrange adventures to suit himself to get those children away while he has Mrs Mannering all to himself? Those children normally so shrewdly observant seem to be peculiarly blind to what must be going on while they are away.)
For most adults who write children’s books, once the communication barrier has been largely overcome, the main problem is to write what children want to read and yet remain intellectually honest to themselves in presenting the world as it really is. For Enid Blyton it seems unlikely that any such dilemma raised its head; she was a child, she thought as a child, and she wrote as a child; of course the craft of an extremely competent adult writer is there, but the basic feeling is essentially pre-adolescent. Piaget has shown us that children tend to make moral judgement purely in terms of good and bad and that it is only with the advent of adolescence that the individual is able to accept different levels of goodness and to judge the actions of others according to the circumstances. En
id Blyton has no moral dilemmas and her books satisfy children because they present things clearly in black and white with no confusing intermediate shades of grey. For the adult of course this is what makes life interesting; for the child ambiguity is untenable. The reason Enid Blyton was able to write so much (most of her books appeared in the ten-year period, 1945-1955) was because she did not have to make any effort to think herself back into childhood or wrestle with her conscience about the falsity of what she wrote.
Gossip about the famous naturally feeds on public doubts as to the validity of the eminent personages’ adopted pose. Clerics become debauchers; politicians, embezzlers and generals, cowards. Inevit ably Enid Blyton was labelled by rumour as a child-hater. If true, such a fact should come as no surprise to us, for as a child herself all other children can be nothing but rivals to her. Perhaps this is why she so constantly put her bold adventurers in dark tunnels and on lonely islands, while canny adults like Bill Cunningham, Mrs Mannering and Uncle Quentin remained behind, enjoying holidays as they ought to be enjoyed, without children or animals to bother them!
APPENDIX 10
Books by Enid Blyton 1922–1968
All books are listed in chronological order under their first publication date. A few books were undated and do not appear in reference books and these have been placed in an approximate year and are indicated by an asterisk (*). Many books were reissued several times, sometimes with a new wrapper or a changed publisher, but this list only includes reprints which were substantially changed in format, sometimes with a new illustrator. Paperback editions of previously published hardbacks are not included. Books published outside the UK (a few unique titles were published in Australia) and those in languages other than English (some books were published in Welsh) are not included.
All titles are as they appeared on the title page of the book; this sometimes differed slightly from the title on the cover. Where they are known illustrators are given and if a book used multiple illustrators, this is listed as ‘various’.
Only books written or edited by Enid Blyton are listed, anthologies, annuals and periodicals containing Blyton stories or articles are beyond the remit of this bibliography. Whilst this list aims to be as complete as possible, there are still a number of books which were published by Birn Bros. in the 1920s and 30s waiting to be ‘discovered’. In this period they gave no copies of their books to reference libraries and no information to reference books. It is known that Enid Blyton produced a considerable amount of work for them, but even she was sent no copies of her books by them, so many titles remain a mystery.
Source of Reference: Enid Blyton: An Illustrated Bibliography (Parts 1–4)
1922
Child Whispers (card covers) (Jun)
J. Saville
1923
Responsive Singing Games (Mar)
J. Saville
Child Whispers (new edition) (hardback) (Jun)
J. Saville
Real Fairies (hardback) (Jul)
J. Saville
1924
Peggy in Fairyland (Jan)
Birn Bros.
Songs of Gladness (Jul)
(music Alec Rowley)
J. Saville
Ten Songs from Child Whispers (Jul)
(music Sydney Twinn)
J. Saville
A Book About Motors (Oct)
Birn Bros.
All About Trains (Oct)
Birn Bros.
Fairy Tales (Oct)
Birn Bros.
Jolly Journeys (Oct)
Birn Bros.
Motoring (Oct)
Birn Bros.
Sports and Games (Oct)
(ill. Richard Ogle)
Birn Bros.
The Zoo Book (Gift Book 1) (Oct)
George Newnes
The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies (Gift Book 2) (Oct)
(ill. Horace Knowles)
George Newnes
1925
Silver and Gold (Apr)
(ill. Lewis Baumer)
Thomas Nelson
Aesop’s Fables Retold (Reading Practice 1) (Aug)
(ill. Rene Bull)
Thomas Nelson
Tales of Brer Rabbit Retold (Reading Practice 2) (Aug)
(ill. Rene Bull and Harry Rountree)
Thomas Nelson
Pinkity’s Pranks and Other Nature Fairy Tales (Reading Practice 3) (Aug)
(ill. A.E. Jackson and Phyllis Chase)
Thomas Nelson
A Book of Silly People – Old Tales Retold (Reading Practice 4) (Aug)
(ill. J.F. Cowell)
Thomas Nelson
Old English Stories Retold (Reading Practice 5) (Aug)
Thomas Nelson
The Enid Blyton Book of Bunnies (Gift Book 3) (Oct)
(ill. Kathleen Nixon)
George Newnes
1926
The Teacher’s Treasury (Vols 1-3) (Apr)
(edited by Enid Blyton)
Home Library
Tales Half Told (Reading Practice 9) (Aug)
(ill. Rosa C. Petherick)
Thomas Nelson
Tarrydiddle Town and Other Stories (Reading Practice 11) (Aug)
(ill. Rosa C. Petherick)
Thomas Nelson
The Bird Book (Gift Book 4) (Oct)
(ill. Roland Green, Philip Rickman E. Mansell)
George Newnes
The Enid Blyton Book of Brownies (Gift Book 5) (Oct)
(ill. Ernest Aris)
George Newnes
Autumn Days – A Song Cycle for Young Children
(music Cecil Sharman)
Novello
1927
A Book of Little Plays (Reading Practice 8) (Jun)
(Reading Practice 6, 7 and 10 were written but not published)
Thomas Nelson
Silver and Gold (new edition) (Sep)
(ill. Ethel Everett)
Thomas Nelson
The Play’s the Thing (Nov)
(ill. Alfred E. Bestall, music Alec Rowley)
(Reissued in two parts as Plays for Older Children and Plays for Younger Children in Sep 1940)
Home Library
The Animal Book (Gift Book 6) (Nov)
(ill. various)
George Newnes
Poll the Parrot (No. 952) (*)
Birn Bros.
Bimbo the Kitten (No. 655) (*)
Birn Bros.
Tales of the Circus (No. 1) (*)
Birn Bros.
The Exciting Birthday (No. 2) (*)
Birn Bros.
Farmyard Tales (No. 3) (*).
Birn Bros.
Fun in Toy-Town (No. 4) (*)
Birn Bros.
Jolly Times (No. 130) (*)
Birn Bros.
Toys! For Girls and Boys (No. 131) (*)
Birn Bros.
The Wonderful Adventure (No. 133) (*)
(ill. K.M. Waterson)
Birn Bros.
Wake Up! – Verses (No. 643) (*)
Birn Bros.
1928
Modern Teaching (Vols 1-6) (Sep)
(general editor Enid Blyton)
Home Library
Let’s Pretend (Oct)
(ill. I. Bennington Angrave)
Thomas Nelson
1929
Enid Blyton’s Nature Lessons (Aug)
Evans Bros.
A Non Stop Run (No. 207) (*)
Birn Bros.
The Book Around Europe (*)
Birn Bros.
How to Count (No. 60) (*)
Birn Bros.
How to Multiply (No. 61) (*)
Birn Bros.
Fairy Tales (No. 63) (*)
Birn Bros.
Two Naughty Pussies (No. 3000) (*)
Birn Bros.
Fairy Tales (No. 3001) (*)
Birn Bros.
Two Ugly Ducklings (No. 3002) (*)
Birn Bros.
My Doll Angelina (No. 3003) (*)
Birn Bros
.
1930
The Knights of the Round Table (Apr)
(ill. T.H. Robinson)
George Newnes
Tales from the Arabian Nights (Apr)
George Newnes
Tales of Ancient Greece (Apr)
George Newnes
Tales of Robin Hood (Apr)
(The four books above are part of John O’London’s Children’s Library)
George Newnes
Pictorial Knowledge (Vols 1-8) (Jun)
(associate editor Enid Blyton)
(Later editions of this work came in 10 volumes)
Home Library
Wendy Wins Through (No. 2) (*)
Birn Bros.
The Luck of the Laytons (No. 4) (*)
Birn Bros.
1931
Round the Year Songs for Unison Singing (May)
(music Alec Rowley)
Novello
1932
Playtime (No. 151) (Jun)
Birn Bros.
Modern Teaching in the Infant School (Vols 1-4)
(general editor Enid Blyton)
Home Library
1933
Cheerio! (No. 216) (Sep)
(ill. Molly Benatar)
Birn Bros.
My First Reading Book (No. 160) (Sep)
Birn Bros.
Read To Us (No. 161) (Sep)
Birn Bros.
Let’s Read (No. 162) (Sept)
Birn Bros.
Five-Minute Tales (Minutes Book 1) (Oct)
Methuen
Letters from Bobs (Bobs 1) (Oct)
Privately Printed
News Chronicle Boys’ and Girls’ Annual (Dec)
(ill. various)
(A later edition was retitled ‘News Chronicle Boys’ and Girls’ Story Book’)
News Chronicle
1934
Round the Year with Enid Blyton (4 parts – Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) (Apr)
(ill. Enid Blyton and Kathleen Nixon)
(These were later retitled Enid Blyton Nature Books)
Evans Bros.
The Talking Teapot and Other Tales (“Old Thatch” 1) (Apr)
(ill. Peacock and Oxley)
W. & A. K. Johnston
Hop, Skip and Jump (“Old Thatch” 2) (Apr)
W. & A. K. Johnston
The Strange Tale of Mr. Wumble (“Old Thatch” 3) (Apr)
(ill. MacDowell)
Enid Blyton Page 24