“loved a relationship with children through her books”
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Enid Blyton
Enid Mary Blyton was an English children's writer. She is one of the best-selling writers of all time in the realm of children's literature. Blyton's books have been worldwide best-sellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies, and have been translated into ninety languages. As of June 2019, Blyton was the fourth-most translated author. She wrote on a wide range of topics, includin…
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culture · English children's writer (1897–1968) · writer · novelist · poet · school teacher · children's writer · screenwriter · teacher · also Enid Blyton, Enid Mary Blyton, Mary Pollock, Enid (Mary) Blyton, Blyton
Born 11 August 1897 · Died 28 November 1968 · Q192069
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2026· 6 entries
“my love of children is the whole foundation of all my work”
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Slant Magazine: ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ Review: Ben Gregor’s Hardly Fruitful Enid Blyton Adaptation
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Manchester Evening News: The Mancunian Way: Enid Blyton innocence
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Irish Independent: Martina Murphy: ‘I wrote a book when I was nine, trying desperately to ape Enid Blyton, but I couldn’t solve the mystery’
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The Guardian: The Magic Faraway Tree review – spruced up Blyton with Foy and Garfield proves fruitful
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2024· 3 entries
Variety: Enid Blyton’s ‘The Famous Five’ Returns for Season 2 on BBC, Nicolas Winding Refn Exec Produces – Global Bulletin
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Deadline.com: Enid Blyton ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ Director Says Adaptation Will Tap Into Children’s Post-Pandemic Anxiety; Unveils First Concept Art Image – EFM
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The Guardian: What Enid Blyton and Brambly Hedge don’t tell you about being Black in the British countryside
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2023· 2 entries
The Guardian: The Famous Five review – this Enid Blyton adaptation feels oddly like the Da Vinci Code
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The Guardian: Nicolas Winding Refn to reinterpret Enid Blyton’s Famous Five for the BBC
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2022· 1 entry
The Independent: I love Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree – but I’m happy there will be a more gender-equal version
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2021· 3 entries
Couriermail: English Heritage reject Enid Blyton for coin commemoration, calling her a “racist, sexist, homophobe”
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The Sun: Why is ‘Enid Blyton racist’ trending?
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Yahoo News UK: English Heritage responds to Enid Blyton racism row
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2019· 1 entry
SBS: Enid Blyton commemorative coin blocked due to homophobic views
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2016· 1 entry
Hindustan Times: Celebrate Enid Blyton’s birthday by reading her best books of all time
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2014· 1 entry
A plaque recording her time as a Beaconsfield resident from 1938 until her death in 1968 was unveiled in the town hall gardens, next to small iron figures of Noddy and Big Ears
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2003· 1 entry
The Magic Faraway Tree was voted 66th in the BBC's Big Read, a year-long survey of the UK's best-loved novels
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2000· 1 entry
Considers Blyton's children to have "lived in a world shaped by the realities of post-war austerity", enjoying freedom without political correctness, which serves modern readers of Blyton's novels with a form of escapism
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1998· 1 entry
But after financial difficulties in 2012, sold its assets
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1997· 1 entry
Exhibitions were put on at the London Toy & Model Museum (now closed), Hereford and Worcester County Museum and Bromley Library, and on 9 September the Royal Mail issued centenary stamps
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1982· 1 entry
With Imogen as its first chairman, and in 1985 it established the National Library for the Handicapped Child
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1979· 1 entry
The company released a Famous Five adventure board game, the Famous Five Kirrin Island Treasure
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1975· 1 entry
And produced four new Malory Towers ones two years later
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1968· 1 entry
Died 1968-11-28.
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1967· 1 entry
But the club continued to raise funds for other paediatric charities, including an Enid Blyton bed at Great Ormond Street Hospital and a mini-bus for disabled children at Stoke Mandeville Hospital
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1965· 1 entry
And Stories for Bedtime and the Sunshine Picture Story Book collection in 1966
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1963· 1 entry
Publishing the last books of The Famous Five (Five Are Together Again) and The Secret Seven (Fun for the Secret Seven); she also produced three more Brer Rabbit books with the illustrator Grace Lodge: Brer Rabbit Again,
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1962· 1 entry
Many of her books were among the first to be published by Armada Books in paperback, making them more affordable to children
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1958· 1 entry
Produced two annuals featuring the character, the first of which included twenty short stories, poems and picture strips
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1957· 3 entries
When, during a round of golf, she started to feel faint and breathless, and, by 1960, she was displaying signs of dementia
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Blyton's health began to deteriorate in 1957, when, during a round of golf, she started to feel faint and breathless, and, by 1960, she was displaying signs of dementia.
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And a Noddy jigsaw series featuring cards appeared from 1963, with illustrations by Robert Lee
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1954· 1 entry
Bestime released the first four jigsaw puzzles of the Secret Seven, and the following year a Secret Seven card game appeared
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1953· 1 entry
And the Little Noddy Leap Frog Game in 1955, and in 1956 American manufacturer Parker Brothers released Little Noddy's Taxi Game, a board game which features Noddy driving about town, picking up various characters
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1952· 3 entries
More than 20,000 additional members were recruited in her first year in office
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And provided funds for equipping a Famous Five Ward at the home, a paddling pool, sun room, summer house, playground, birthday and Christmas celebrations, and visits to the pantomime
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And it closed down the following year, shortly before the appearance of the new fortnightly Enid Blyton Magazine written entirely by Blyton
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1950· 1 entry
Blyton established the company Darrell Waters Ltd to manage her affairs
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1949· 4 entries
Arranged a meeting between Blyton and the Dutch illustrator Harmsen van der Beek
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The same year as Blyton's first daily Noddy strip for the London Evening Standard
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But it appears to be unrelated and is believed to be something written in the 1930s, which had been rejected by a publisher
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As was the first of her fifteen Secret Seven novels
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1948· 1 entry
Bestime released four jigsaw puzzles featuring her characters, and the first Enid Blyton board game appeared, Journey Through Fairyland, created by BGL
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1946· 1 entry
Blyton launched the first in the Malory Towers series of six books based around the schoolgirl Darrell Rivers, First Term at Malory Towers, which became extremely popular, particularly with girls
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1945· 1 entry
After discovering she was pregnant in the spring of 1945, Blyton miscarried five months later, following a fall from a ladder.
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1943· 4 entries
Pollock, having married Crowe on 26 October 1943, eventually resumed his heavy drinking and was forced to petition for bankruptcy in 1950.
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Under the nom de plume of Mary Pollock
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The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage launched the Five Find-Outers series
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Published The Children's Life of Christ, a collection of fifty-nine short stories related to the life of Jesus, with her slant on popular biblical stories, from the Nativity and the Three Wise Men through to the tria
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1942· 1 entry
Blyton released the first book in the Mary Mouse series, Mary Mouse and the Dolls' House, about a mouse exiled from her mousehole who becomes a maid at a dolls' house
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1941· 1 entry
Blyton met Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters, a London surgeon with whom she began a serious affair
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1940· 3 entries
Blyton published the first of her boarding school story books and the first novel in the Naughtiest Girl series, The Naughtiest Girl in the School, which followed the exploits of the mischievous schoolgirl Elizabeth Alle
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And four in 1943 – were reissued under Blyton's name
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Blyton published two books – Three Boys and a Circus and Children of Kidillin – under the pseudonym of Mary Pollock (middle name plus first married name), in addition to the eleven published under her name that year
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1939· 1 entry
Is about a magic tree inspired by the Norse mythology that had fascinated Blyton as a child
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1938· 2 entries
Featuring the characters of Jack, Mike, Peggy and Nora
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And her family moved to a house in Beaconsfield, named Green Hedges by Blyton's readers, following a competition in her magazine
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1934· 3 entries
Gave birth to a second daughter, Imogen, on 27 October 1935
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And after Blyton publicised its existence in the Enid Blyton Magazine, it attracted 100,000 members in three years
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The same year as Brer Rabbit Retold; (Brer Rabbit originally featured in Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris), her first serial story and first full-length book, Adventures of the Wishing-Chair, followed in 1937
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1933· 1 entry
Were published in book form as Letters from Bobs, and sold ten thousand copies in the first week
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1931· 1 entry
Blyton's first daughter, Gillian, was born on 15 July 1931, and after a miscarriage in 1934, she gave birth to a second daughter, Imogen, on 27 October 1935.
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1927· 1 entry
Including A Book of Little Plays and The Play's the Thing with the illustrator Alfred Bestall
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1926· 2 entries
And then to Old Thatch in Bourne End (called Peterswood in her books) in 1929
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Took over the editing of Sunny Stories, a magazine that typically included the re-telling of legends, myths, stories and other articles for children
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1924· 2 entries
On 28 August 1924, Blyton married Major Hugh Alexander Pollock at Bromley Register Office, without inviting her family.
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Blyton's marriage to Pollock was troubled for years, and according to Crowe's memoir, she had a series of affairs, including with one of the children's nannies and with Lola Onslow, an artist who illustrated Blyton's 1924 book, titled The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies.
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1923· 1 entry
Her poems appeared alongside those of Rudyard Kipling, Walter de la Mare, and G
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1920· 2 entries
Blyton moved to Chessington in Surrey and began writing in her spare time
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Moved to Southernhay, in Hook Road Surbiton, as nursery governess to the four sons of architect Horace Thompson and his wife Gertrude, with whom Blyton spent four happy years
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1915· 1 entry
As head girl, she moved out of the family home to live with her friend Mary Attenborough, before going to stay with George and Emily Hunt at Seckford Hall, near Woodbridge, in Suffolk
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1911· 1 entry
Entered Arthur Mee's children's poetry competition
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1897· 1 entry
Born 1897-08-11.
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