Mee offered to print her verses, encouraging her to produce more. She was not so keen on all the academic subjects but excelled in writing, and in 1911 she entered Arthur Mee's children's poetry competition. įrom 1907 to 1915 Blyton attended St Christopher's School in Beckenham, where she enjoyed physical activities and became school tennis champion and captain of lacrosse. Enid and her mother did not have a good relationship, and she did not attend either of her parents' funerals. Enid was devastated when he left the family shortly after her thirteenth birthday to live with another woman. He also passed on his interest in gardening, art, music, literature and the theatre, and the pair often went on nature walks, much to the disapproval of Enid's mother, who showed little interest in her daughter's pursuits. Thomas Blyton ignited Enid's interest in nature in her autobiography she wrote that he "loved flowers and birds and wild animals, and knew more about them than anyone I had ever met". A few months after her birth Enid almost died from whooping cough, but was nursed back to health by her father, whom she adored. Enid's younger brothers, Hanly (1899–1983) and Carey (1902–1976), were born after the family had moved to a semi-detached villa in Beckenham, then a village in Kent. There have also been several adaptations of her books for stage, screen and television.Įnid Blyton was born on 11 August 1897 in East Dulwich, South London, United Kingdom, the oldest of the three children, to Thomas Carey Blyton (1870–1920), a cutlery salesman (the 1911 census records his occupation as Mantle Manufacturer dealer, women's suits, skirts, etc), and his wife Theresa Mary ( née Harrison 1874–1950). The story of Blyton's life was dramatised in a BBC television film entitled Enid, featuring Helena Bonham Carter in the title role and first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Four in 2009. In particular, through the clubs she set up or supported, she encouraged and organised them to raise funds for animal and paediatric charities. She felt she had a responsibility to provide her readers with a strong moral framework, so she encouraged them to support worthy causes. Her books have been criticised as being elitist, sexist, racist, xenophobic and at odds with the more progressive environment emerging in post-Second World War Britain, but they have continued to be best-sellers since her death in 1968. Some libraries and schools banned her works, which the BBC had refused to broadcast from the 1930s until the 1950s, because they were perceived to lack literary merit. The sheer volume of her work and the speed with which it was produced led to rumours that Blyton employed an army of ghost writers, a charge she vigorously denied.īlyton's work became increasingly controversial among literary critics, teachers and parents from the 1950s onwards, because of the alleged unchallenging nature of her writing and the themes of her books, particularly the Noddy series. Her writing was unplanned and sprang largely from her unconscious mind: she typed her stories as events unfolded before her. Following the commercial success of her early novels such as Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (1937) and The Enchanted Wood (1939), Blyton went on to build a literary empire, sometimes producing fifty books a year in addition to her prolific magazine and newspaper contributions. Her first book, Child Whispers, a 24-page collection of poems, was published in 1922.
She wrote on a wide range of topics including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives and is best remembered today for her Noddy, Famous Five, Secret Seven, The Five Find Outers and Malory Towers. As of June 2018, Blyton is in the 4th place for the most translated author. Blyton's books are still enormously popular, and have been translated into 90 languages. Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer whose books have been among the world's best-sellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies.
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