5 interesting facts about enid blyton
I knew very little about her She was something of a feminist icon and a pioneer for working from home Her family history and her detachment from her own children made for fascinating reading I wasn t aware of how her books were roundly criticised by teachers for their absence of literary quality that certainly isn t my memory of her books Blyton herself didn t care the opinion of children was all she valued The biography unfortunately is repetitive in places and littered with typos It could do with a good edit It also could be retitled in defence of Enid Blyton as while it explores some of the controversial language in her books.
5 interesting facts about enid blyton
And that evokes the subject in such a way to bring them alive and relevant again in the present I don t feel I got to know the real Enid Blyton at all I don t think it helped that the book is written in a very uneven way at one point I was unsure whether this book was aimed at children or adults and is very repetitive with the facts I did find it tiresome that it was mentioned many times that Enid s emotional growth was stunted by her parents separation when she was 13 There wasn t enough credit given to the reader to put two and two together for themselves I do not relish giving a critical review I m sure the author worked very hard on it.
What is enid blyton most famous book
Nadia Cohen is an author who has written than a dozen historical and contemporary biographies The Real Beatrix Potter will be the latest in a series of fascinating in depth biographies about apparently whimsical children s story tellers who actually hid a darker side behind the public facade Others already published include The Extraordinary Life of AA Milne The Real Roald Dahl and The Real Enid Blyton In a previous incarnation as an entertainment reporter she worked at various newspapers and magazines in London including Grazia The Daily Mail and The Sun covering showbiz news film festivals premieres and award ceremonies around the world She was headhunted to join the launch of US magazine In Touch Weekly and spent several ye Nadia Cohen is an author who has written than a dozen historical and contemporary biographies The Real Beatrix Potter will be the latest in a series of fascinating in depth biographies about apparently whimsical children s story tellers who actually hid a darker side behind the public facade Others already published include The Extraordinary Life of AA Milne The Real Roald Dahl and The Real Enid Blyton In a previous incarnation as an entertainment reporter she worked at various newspapers and magazines in London including Grazia The Daily Mail and The Sun covering showbiz news film festivals premieres and award ceremonies around the world She was headhunted to join the launch of US magazine In Touch Weekly and spent several years working in New York and Los Angeles before returning to London to produce a series of documentaries for ITV. What is enid blyton most famous book Nadia lectures in Journalism at University of Winchester and is the editor of digital lifestyle magazine Box Ibiza site_link She is the most prolific children s author in history but Enid Blyton is also the most controversial A remarkable woman who wrote hundreds of books in a career spanning forty years even her razor sharp mind could never have predicted her enormous global audience Now fifty years after her death Enid remains a phenomenon with sales outstripping every rival Parents and teachers lobbied against Enid s books complaining they were simplistic repetitive and littered with sexist and snobbish undertones Blatant racist slurs were particularly shockingly foreign and working class characters were treated with a distain that horrifies modern readers But regardless of the criticism Enid worked until she could not physically write another word famously producing thousands of words a day hunched over her manual typewriter She imaged a innocent world where children roamed unsupervised and problems were solved with midnight feasts or glorious picnics with lashings of ginger beer Smugglers thieves spies and kidnappers were thwarted by fearless gangs who easily outwitted the police while popular schoolgirls scored winning goals in nail biting lacrosse matches Enid carefully crafted her public image to ensure her fans only knew of this sunny persona but behind the scenes she weaved elaborate stories to conceal infidelities betrayals and unconventional friendships lied about her childhood and never fully recovered from her parent s marriage collapsing She grew up convinced that her beloved father abandoned her for someone he loved and few could ever measure up to her impossible standards A complex and immature woman Enid was plagued by insecurities and haunted by a dark past She was prone to bursts of furious temper yet was a shrewd businesswoman years ahead of her time She may not have been particularly likeable and her stories infuriatingly unimaginative but she left a vast literary legacy to generations of children The Real Enid BlytonI read A LOT of Enid Blyton when I was a kid and I definitely meant to capitalise A LOT Enid Blyton was the reason I Wanted to go to boarding schoolWanted to live on an island lie on heather this stopped when I realised I only like nature from a distance Wanted to eat scones tbf these are delicious and I love baking them And probably a few things but I ve already forgotten them The Real Enid Blyton is a biography of this writer and it was an eye opener I always knew that I liked her stories but I didn t realise how complicated her life was It s pretty clear that having her dearly loved father walk out on her and her family stunted Blyton emotionally and even though she wrote prolifically and was devoted to her fans apparently she was very insistent on answering fan mail by hand she was also very emotionally distant to her daughters and couldn t sustain than one emotionally intimate relationship at a time Another thing the biography also made clear was how contradictory Blyton was She always talked about the importance of the traditional nuclear family but she didn t even act like the mothers she wrote about to her own kids She was definitely a very business minded woman and she embodied a lot of the thinking of her times which is why there is a lot to criticise in her writing as well Regarding her books can someone remind me to read The Rockingdown Mystery because it s apparently one of Enid s most sophisticated series of books I also read that The Family at Red Roofs is Blyton s second attempt at fiction with social commentary her first was The Six Bad Boys and apparently it was better received by adults than children It s interesting to see how she tried to branch out in her writing. The real enid blyton pdf book The last part of the book covers the backlash against Blyton and how she is now semi rehabilitated I actually don t know if she s still selling well being read by children but as someone who grew up reading Blyton I can see why her name sells I am for example interested in reading the Famous Five parody series The only negative thing I have to say about this book is that it moves along at a very fast pace by chapter 6 Enid is 34 and the whole book is over by chapter 18 The narration also feels fairly distant and we are definitely being told what is going on rather than being immersed in her life but this wasn t a huge problem for me. Enid blyton - bookpedia Overall I really enjoyed this book I never really think about authors especially authors of childhood favourites so it was interesting learning about Blyton and seeing what a complex contradictory person she was I think the next time I reread something from her I ll be seeing things through a new lens This review was first posted at Eustea Reads The Real Enid Blyton Every lover of reading and in fact everyone reader or not has heard of Enid Blyton. The real enid blyton pdf free we all have our memories of this author and her books lashings of ginger beer whole fruit cakes and mounds of sandwiches they were innocent times and many of us thrived on her booksThis book tries to discover if in fact Enid Blyton was as wonderful as portrayed and although we have all heard the stories and rumours and criticism s re racism sexism and snobbery I was almost wary to read the book in case it was an onslaught and everything I had loved in her books was false it wasn t oh there is plenty to learn about her and her foibles and not so great ways but all in all it is a very fair representation of her life and career fascinating in good and bad and leaves the reader maybe not under any illusion she was perfect but still able to focus on her many attributesI was surprised to read her books still sell between 6 7 million copies a year yep still that many every year A remarkable women an intriguing life and a fascinating read The Real Enid Blyton Growing up I was a huge Enid Blyton fan The Famous Five Secret Seven The Mallery Towers and St Clare s being among my favourites I don t think there will be many children who have not read a book of some description by Enid Blyton Unfortunately it has been said that Enid Blyton was allegedly not a very nice person She was neither loving or caring in her roles as mother and wife Nadia Cohen takes us from birth through to Enid s death Although a great writer of children s books she didn t have a good relationship with her own children This is a good portrayal of Enid Blyton s life that s well balanced and shows some of her better points. Enid blyton famous works I would like to thank NetGalley PenandSword and the author NadiaCohen for my ARC of TheRealEnidBlyton in exchange for an honest review The Real Enid Blyton I greedily devoured the stories of Enid Blyton as a child one of the most prolific writers ever I loved The Girls of St Clares the Malory Towers series the Famous Five and the Secret Seven Her works contributed towards me becoming a child bookworm so than any other writer and this biography was eye opening enlightening informational and an indulgent nostalgic journey of sentimentality Fascinating I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Pen Sword via NetGalley This review is my own unbiased opinion The Real Enid Blyton I like many other bookworms spent a vast portion of my childhood with my nose buried in an Enid Blyton book I loved them and would be willingly carried away and left longing for you best friend to turn up so you could play and scoff whatever food was put in front of you Friendship and food are always a constant As an adult I was aware of the criticism leveled at her about racism sexism and even that she was a Nazi I hoped this book would shed some light on whether Enid truly was a despicable human or rather that she has provided a great deal of literature written from a place of privilege at a time when inequality was the norm I would say the book leans towards the latter I did have a few issues with this book I don t have a problem with thematic histories which sometimes make a book feel like its bouncing backwards and forwards through time However it wasn t easy to determined the theme of each chapter. Enid blyton life story e when Anthony Eden was the PM because it wasn t during the second World War Did Enid write 8000 words a day or 1000o Cohen suggested that the reason Enid took so long to fall pregnant was due to her uterus failing to mature beyond that of a 12 years old Which coincidentally was Enid s age when her father walked out and with one gigantic leap the assertion is made that the shock of her father leaving stunted her uterus Happily the doctor was able to give her some injections and bosh she was preggers I nearly put the book down at this point I wouldn t have been so annoyed if the assertion was made based on the Dr s or Enid s belief but on reading the book I was left with the distinct feeling that Cohen had come to this conclusion without having examined the patient seen her test results or had any awareness of the treatment Thankfully I have finished the book now and will probably avoid other works by Cohen The Real Enid Blyton 
While all humans have biases and those biases inevitably crawl into our writing I do believe that what distinguishes an autobiography from a biography is not just the point of view but also a respectable distance from the subject The self author gets to canvas for themselves but the biographer is responsible for a certain level of wider perspective. What is enid blyton most famous book My rating of The Real Enid Blyton is largely based on the author s inability to maintain that perspective It may be fair to expect that a biographer of an author may be a big fan or a big critic but much of this biography felt rather like a defence written by someone who is incensed by a slight towards their childhood hero And of course one of the great challenges of growing up is learning that our heroes are fallible. The real enid blyton book pdf Like much of the world s readers Enid Blyton s books formed a large part of my early reading life My good fortune is that I did not idolise her I had no idea who she was from whence and whether she was even still alive she wasn t So reading a whole lot of opinions about her many negative does nothing to my sense of self and it does not shake my world It doesn t even make me regret reading her books. Book the real enid blyton pdf As a subject Blyton was certainly an interesting albeit annoying individual As someone who has always wished to successfully publish a novel but never even managed to complete a first draft her achievements are noteworthy There is much that can be learned from someone who understood children could write what they wanted to read to both inspire them AND capitalise on it There is also much that authors and other creatives could learn to avoid from Blyton s story and this is where Nadia Cohen falls short. 5 interesting facts about enid blyton Setting the scene the first third of The Real Enid Blyton is fairly neutral and factual Cohen seems able to view Blyton s personal battles and faults with balance As the biography progresses to addressing Blyton s writing specifically the criticism towards it it becomes and clear that Cohen is not only a fan but one who is unwilling to consider the criticisms levelled at Blyton as anything but vitriol Her unconditional defence of Blyton is proven by the choice of vocabulary Blyton endured condemnation criticism of The Famous Five was incredulous and Cohen begs to differ Unfortunately Cohen s analysis of criticism towards Blyton s work lacks nuance Half of her defence is limited to well that simply isn t true rather than providing a debate of substance The other half is along the lines of Remember Enid was a product of her time an excuse that has never been robust enough to justify any kind of bigotry and never will Further much of the criticism emerged during Blyton s lifetime so a product of which time was she exactly My copy had no references which is concerning but it might be that it was not included in the advanced copy Certainly it seems that the biography would have benefited from a greater variety of sources. Enid blyton life story Titling her work The Real Enid Blyton implies that other accounts of Blyton have been lacking ergo that this work is most complete and most accurate Having taken this burden upon herself from the very title sets a huge expectation and unfortunately not one that is successfully met. Enid blyton famous works Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher Pen Sword for granting this eARC in exchange for an honest review The Real Enid Blyton Like many children in Britain and other countries around the world I grew up reading Enid Blyton Although her books have attracted a lot of criticism for their outdated attitudes and a perceived lack of literary merit I have lots of happy memories of solving crimes with the Five Find Outers going on adventures with the Famous Five and getting to know the girls of Malory Towers and St Clare s As a child I never gave any thought to the author herself and what she may have been like as a wife mother or friend but I later became aware that she was allegedly not a very nice person and certainly not the loving maternal figure her books would lead you to believe She has been the subject of TV documentaries and a 2009 BBC drama starring Helena Bonham Carter as well as several biographies including this one The Real Enid Blyton in which Nadia Cohen takes us through Enid s life from birth to death and attempts to shed some light on the woman behind the stories. 5 interesting facts about enid blyton Enid was born in East Dulwich South London in 1897 and Cohen suggests that her character was shaped by the break up of her parents marriage while she was in her early teens Enid had a close loving relationship with her father Thomas Blyton who instilled in her a love of reading animals and nature but she didn t get on very well at all with her mother Theresa When Thomas left his wife for another woman Theresa refused to agree to a divorce and insisted that his new living arrangements be kept secret in order to avoid bringing shame on the family Enid was devastated and felt that her father had betrayed her by choosing someone else over her As she grew into an adult she would learn to detach herself from the people around her removing people from her life without a backward glance and would deal with anything unpleasant by simply pretending it hadn t happened things Cohen attributes to the emotional damage caused by her father s departure. The real enid blyton book pdf Enid began to write after taking a teacher training course and working first as a teacher then as a private governess She said It was the children themselves who taught me how to write No adult can teach you that as they can I was interested to read that early in her career she submitted an adult novel The Caravan Goes On to her agent but it was rejected and later reworked into her children s book Mr Galliano s Circus If that novel had been accepted I wonder whether she would have continued to write for adults rather than for children However that was not to be and apart from an adult play she wrote in the 1950s which was also rejected she concentrated on writing for the younger readers she understood so well By the peak of her career in 1951 she produced thirty seven books in that one year alone. The enid blyton society Despite Enid s popularity with children she had never met her own children seem to have felt neglected and unloved Cohen provides plenty of evidence of this sprinkling throughout the book quotes from Gillian and Imogen Enid s two daughters by her first husband Hugh Pollock Imogen described her mother as arrogant insecure and without a trace of maternal instinct Her approach to life was childlike and she could be spiteful like a teenager Enid and Hugh divorced when the girls were still young children and she refused to let them have any further contact with their father another example of cutting all her ties but this time her children were made to suffer Her second marriage to the surgeon Kenneth Waters was happier but Enid s relationship with Imogen in particular never improved However Cohen s portrayal of Enid seems quite fair and balanced overall and she does acknowledge Enid s good points such as her energy impressive work ethic and support for various charities Cohen also discusses some of the criticism directed at Enid s work and the recent attempts of publishers to censor and update her books something I think many of us who were Blyton fans feel quite strongly about It can t be denied that her books did contain a lot of sexism racism and snobbery but some of the changes that were made just seem completely unnecessary Even before these recent controversies Enid s books had been banned by some libraries and by the BBC until the 1950s because of her over simplified writing and undemanding plots with one critic accusing her of poisoning the reading ability of children and another claiming children would become addicted to her books and would never go on to read adult literature Enid s response to all of this was that she didn t care about the opinion of anyone over the age of twelve I enjoyed this biography and found it interesting to get some insights into the life and career of a favourite childhood author even if they weren t always positive ones The Real Enid Blyton This biography of Enid Blyton caught my eye on Netgalley I grew up with Enid Blyton who didn t and I would go so far as to say she is responsible for me being a bookworm She invented the pageturner for children fostering a love of and an addiction to reading in so many children myself included I read so many of her books we had rakes of them at home and I borrowed from the library Some were handed down by cousins and I can still remember the musty smell of the yellowed gossamer thin pages She wrote than 750 books over the course of her life has there ever been a prolific author This short biography ca 170 pages explores her early life her marriages and family her career as a writer and the backlash she faced over later years with allegations of racism anti Semitism and classism directed at her I found it really interesting as though I read reams of her books as a child it doesn t really probe her motivations or how it was received in any great detail merely putting it down to it was of its time Perhaps that is so but I d have like something a little incisive than what was offered Despite all the controversy around Blyton I have a soft spot for her books as does the author Cohen clearly She fed my hunger for reading and the fact that she was so prolific meant there was always another of her books to dive into when I finished one and was ready for another I d recommend this one if you were a lover of her books as a child but with the caveat that it s not the best written biog you ll ever read 3. Book the real enid blyton pdf 5 5 Many thanks to penswordbooks for the eARC via netgalley As always this is an honest review The Real Enid Blyton was published in October The Real Enid Blyton Like so many I grew up voraciously devouring Enid Blyton books Whether you love her or not consider her work trivial simplistic sexist and racist her contribution to the reading habits of children is undeniable We still all want to go on a picnic with lashings of ginger beer As former children s laureate Anne Fine comments In times of failing reading levels and limitless other distractions we grasp at any author who has that turn the page quality And for reasons that remain entirely mysterious to reading adults she certainly has that. The real enid blyton pdf download free After watching the movie Enid featuring the incomparable Helena Bonham Carter as Enid Blyton this biography read very much like the movie script as well as featuring analysis of her works and her notoriety as the most criticised children s author Her family life was a disaster and definitely paid the price for her prolific output about 800 titles by her death Overall an interesting look into an author we have probably already read at least once in our childhood The Real Enid Blyton Like most children who loved reading I adored and devoured Enid Blyton books while growing up When I was a teenager in the late 1990s I became aware that Blyton had fallen out of favour and I remember the uproar when the publisher was updating the vocabulary used in her books replacing children named Dick and Fanny for example which was probably wise I think it was the removal of lashings of ginger beer that had most Blyton fans up in arms I have always been curious to know about the woman behind this phenomenal success in children s literature and publishing something even JK Rowling has never transcended Blyton died in 1968 and yet her books continue to sell in the millions year after year nearly six decades later Sowho was she Unfortunately we don t ever really find out This simplistic biography suggests Blyton was a very emotionally immature mercurial selfish and quite cruel person There is very little empathy evoked for the biography s subject at all The figures I felt the most empathy for were Enid s mother and younger daughter Imogen whose own book on her mother I ve been inspired to seek out If we are to believe this book the real Enid Blyton despite her merry persona was quite cold and single minded unrepentant about cutting herself off from people she found too difficult to deal with Her mother brothers first husband and even friends found ties unexpectedly and permanently severed Having said that how can we be sure this is the real Enid Blyton we re being presented with This book s biggest issue is the lack of any referencing system whatsoever which is a serious shortcoming for anything claiming to be a biography My ARC did not contain any referencing at all perhaps this is not the case for the printed edition Letters diaries quotes from articles and other sources abound in this book but they aren t backed up by any dates or even a reference list at the end Nadia Cohen must have done research for the writing of this book and the lack of referencing really does her a disservice and makes the reader question the validity of sources used For a title containing The Real one needs to be able to back that up with solid evidence I found it deeply problematic that there was nothing to back up any of the facts the author was basing the story on Some investigation reveals that this is a book in a series The Real Beatrix Potter Roald Dahl etc This suggests to me that this isn t aimed at an audience who expects History with a capital H with references and lists of sources I really hope they improve this for any future editions of this book. The real enid blyton book review An author and cultural figure of Blyton s stature however privileged and problematic by today s standards surely warrants a serious biography that is historically and factually sound rigorously researched and it is certainly a fascinating premise for a biography But ultimately it whetted my appetite for a Blyton biography rather than satisfied I m doing a PhD in history so perhaps that made me critical than the average reader Referencing is absolutely everything in my world Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review which I m sorry is not positive The Real Enid Blyton.