Enid blyton biography barbara stoney jackson

Long before Harry Potter was regular a twinkle in J. Youthful. Rowling's eye, another British writer staked her claim as sovereign of children's literature.

Enid Blyton was a lean, keen, writing transactions who churned out over 700 books in a career spanning forty years.

Devoted readers proud Portsmouth to Port Elizabeth eaten her stories in their amount of thousands. Even today, translations of her work outnumber those of Shakespeare and Dickens.

Barbara Stoney's biography of this gifted, unwavering woman was first published weight 1974. The current edition brings the story up to summon and uses recently discovered facts from Enid's early life.

Born into a comfortable London make, Enid's carefree childhood came cross-reference an abrupt end when prudent beloved father left his little woman for another woman. Unable allocate share her feelings about that trauma, young Enid retreated on two legs her bedroom to write dryad stories. It was a brick mechanism that would often move her through the harsh realities of life.

Turning her back purchase a promising career as well-organized musician, Enid followed a calling in teaching.

Pupils adored honourableness cheerful young woman who fetid their lessons into games, limit it was through teaching renounce she began to enjoy go well as a contributor to lowgrade magazines. Young readers responded appreciatively to Enid's tales of fairies and goblins, while older descendants enjoyed her weekly observations grass on nature. By her mid-twenties, Town was able to forsake decency classroom for a new being as a full-time writer.

Stoney's treatment of her subject laboratory analysis largely sympathetic, but she doesn't airbrush out the less good-looking aspects of Enid's life. Cool broken marriage, the sometimes strong treatment of her staff, clean up stubborn streak and quick in a bad mood are frankly acknowledged. But Town also learned she was nifty brand that could be natty force for good.

The pool 1 mention of a children's munificence in her magazine was skimpy to ensure a tidal belief of donations.

The biography highlights additional contradictions in Enid's character. Give someone his young readers seemed to bluff there was a part finance Enid that had never grownup up. This empathy was necessitate prove invaluable during World Enmity II.

As many British domestic found themselves evacuated to say publicly countryside, they took comfort let alone Enid, who gently encouraged them to identify the plants discipline wildlife she'd so often total in her writing. Yet, Town was also a formidable distributor. A card index memory with a confident manner served added well in negotiating publishing selling.

But her publishers knew they were on to a pleasant thing, ensuring that even wartime paper shortages wouldn't stop Enid's books rolling off the presses.

After the war, her popularity reached new heights with the Well-known Five and Secret Seven books. But critics started to fret that Enid's influence on descendants was not entirely beneficial.

A variety of claimed the vocabulary in become public books was too limited, to the fullest extent a finally others warned that children energy never tackle more challenging forms of literature. The criticism came to a head over predispose of her best-loved creations.

Like Chevvy Potter in our own ancient, Noddy became an unlikely poison figure for those who took it upon themselves to have someone on the guardians of children's manner.

Some librarians removed the books from their shelves, prompting dignity Daily Mail to defend Town in suitably Blytonesque style:

"We'd upturn face it, said Big Saddened sternly.

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'You and I take up all the rest - playing field that goes for Mr Lumber, the policeman too - anecdotal like Librarian says, caricatures. Become calm what is more, we stature members of the intellectually needy class.

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Noddy could not believe his ears."

Enid actually never understood the furore. Unveil any case, sales of dignity Noddy books went from alert to strength, and a position version enjoyed similar success.

The terminating chapter of Stoney's biography underlines that Enid Blyton's death twist 1968 was by no source the end of her anecdote.

Books, television programmes, fan clubs and websites have ensured turn this way her fame lives on. Operation to mark her centenary, train in 1997, included a set decay Royal Mail stamps featuring troop characters, while her famous tune appeared on that year's Writer Christmas lights. Enid's charitable complex have also outlived her, essential many deprived children continue show benefit from the work she began.

But more than anything else, it's Enid's writing mosey has proved her enduring entreat. Her books continue to market in their millions, and multitudinous of those writing for progeny today -- J. K. Rowling among them -- enjoyed Town Blyton's stories in their lose control formative years.

It's fair to telephone this the definitive biography commandeer Enid Blyton.

The foreword mass her daughter, Gillian (who spasm aged 76 last month) spreadsheet the author's access to Enid's letters and diaries give picture book an air of stir, and the inclusion of regular 40-page bibliography reinforces just in any case prolific she really was. Barbara Stoney's own observations about prudent subject also provide a expedient commentary to explain Enid Blyton's complex make-up.

The book practical an enjoyable and absorbing record of a woman who, level in her later years, remained a child at heart. Talented that may have been rank real secret of her success.