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[Moonraker]

Great to see you still have some influence, Tony. You should feel proud.

I'm not sure that I have any influence at all, it would have to be viewed by Hodder as a profitable proposition.

Oh, your modesty becomes you! You still have influence if the mighty Hodder bends its ear towards you. Obviously any proposition needs to be profitable, but then you wouldn't suggest it if it wasn't, would you?

[Tony Summerfield]

Realistic rather than modest, I have just as many failures to my name! I spent about two years fighting to get The Secret Mountain published with the rest of the series - and lost!

[Courtenay]

It's still obviously worth trying, though, Tony — someone needs to stand up for Blyton!!

I haven't read The Secret Mountain, but from what others have said about it here, I find it hard to understand why it should be considered so un-PC as to not be published again at all, even with alterations. I would have thought The Mountain of Adventure would be the far more obvious candidate for banning, considering it's one of the very, very few Blyton books that really do cross the line into blatant racism. Yet it's still in print — though, understandably, with the pretty awful racial caricatures edited out — while The Secret Mountain is somehow considered completely unacceptable. Where's the sense in that?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Hodder recently took over the publication of the Secret series from Award, and it was Hodder who decided not to reprint The Secret Mountain. The Adventure series is still published by Macmillan, who are happy to keep all the titles in print.

I wouldn't use the words "blatant racism" even to describe The Mountain of Adventure. Enid Blyton didn't intend to be insulting or controversial - she simply relied on certain stereotypes that were common at that time in presenting people of other races.

[Rob Houghton]

I was just about to say, its all down to the individual publisher. I guess if Hodder one day owns Macmillan, then they could just as easily decide to not publish The Mountain of Adventure...and probably The River of Adventure, too. I think we are, sadly, standing on the threshold of many of Enid's books suddenly going out of print forever. That's how things are these days - everyone is offended by something.

I totally agree that you can't call any of Enid's books 'blatant racism' or blatant sexism or any other 'ism' for that matter! As I have always said, they were written with the mindset of a woman who was born in 1897 and was writing in the 1930s - 60's. I can remember watching The Black and White Minstrel Show on TV in the 70's and thoroughly enjoying it, as well as The Generation Game with the 'glamorous assistants' and Miss World. All of these things are frowned on nowadays, but back then were more than acceptable. As I've said, we still use stereotypes today - especially 'the stupidly thick husband' in adverts and plenty of others, which I'm sure in ten years time will all be frowned on. We are becoming a very 'buttoned up' society!

[Courtenay]

Ah, I was just thinking it might be something to do with them having different publishers — just as Tony mentioned earlier that Chorion wouldn't reprint the Galliano's Circus titles, but Egmont and Hodder had no problem with them.

I wouldn't use the words "blatant racism" even to describe The Mountain of Adventure. Enid Blyton didn't intend to be insulting or controversial - she simply relied on certain stereotypes that were common at that time in presenting people of other races.

Oh, I agree — I don't believe for a moment that Enid was intending to be insulting or controversial either. As you say, she was just copying the racial stereotypes that were quite common in popular literature of the day (and plenty of writers did far more horrible versions of them than Enid ever did). "Blatant racism" probably was a bit too strong a way of putting it — The Mountain of Adventure is the only Blyton title I can think of that I'd even consider describing that way. I just meant that I can completely understand why Sam and the Japanese guards have had their pidgin English and all references to their colour/ethnicity removed from modern editions. It's a compromise, and one I don't necessarily like, but it's better than having the book go out of print entirely.

Funny then to think that Hodder considers a book involving an imaginary tribal people in Africa to be beyond the pale, yet they don't have a problem with a series all about a circus that has exotic performing animals — or with a moralistic parable/allegory that ends with an explicitly Christian message, culminating in a personal appearance from Jesus Christ himself!!

[Anita Bensoussane]

I think the difference is that Mr. Galliano in the Galliano's Circus series only employs (or retains) trainers who treat their animals kindly, and The Land of Far-Beyond is for the most part fully inclusive, focussing on ethics rather than religion and bringing in Christian elements without being at all disparaging towards non-Christians. So readers won't pick up negative messages from those stories and won't feel uneasy about reading them.

The original portrayal of Sam the partatrooper in The Mountain of Adventure, on the other hand (I don't recall much about the Japanese guards as I haven't read the book for years), probably would make many modern readers feel uncomfortable ("I poor nigger, little missy," etc). That's no reason to remove The Mountain of Adventure from publication altogether though, as Hodder have done with The Secret Mountain. Passages like the one I quoted were edited by Macmillan some time ago. The Secret Mountain had already been edited too (in the 1990s, I think) so that Mafumu didn't come across as Jack's "slave", so I'm not sure exactly what issues Hodder still had with the book. It would be terrible to see the gradual loss of all Blyton books with a foreign setting.

[Rob Houghton]

I think the difference is that Mr. Galliano in the Galliano's Circus series only employs (or retains) trainers who treat their animals kindly

That's true, and has always been a great strength of the Galliano books...but given the argument that publishers usually fall back on - that children need to be able to 'identify' with what they are reading, surely a circus with performing animals is off in the realms of fantasy? Presuming that all Enid's books are set in 2016 (which is what publishers like to have us believe) I'm surprised the Galliano books haven't been modernised beyond all recognition!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, I don't have modern copies of the Galliano's Circus books (mine are Dean & Son editions dating from the 1970s) but the stories only work if readers are aware that they're set in an earlier era.

[Tony Summerfield]

I think perhaps that people get a bit carried away by the term 'modernisation'. The only thing that has been modernised in Enid Blyton books is the language, the stories haven't been altered at all. Also it is worth saying that most books have got relatively few changes, it is only the Famous Five series that was completely rewritten and those versions have anyway been discarded with the latest editions, as they have gone back to the edition that came out in the mid 90s.

It is also worth pointing out that whilst Hodder (Hachette) and Chorion are or were copyright holders, Chorion were not publishers, they simply made decisions which publishers had to follow.

[pete9012S]

I think we are, sadly, standing on the threshold of many of Enid's books suddenly going out of print forever. That's how things are these days - everyone is offended by something.

One of the most common sense posts I have ever read on these forums.

[Rob Houghton]

I think perhaps that people get a bit carried away by the term 'modernisation'. The only thing that has been modernised in Enid Blyton books is the language, the stories haven't been altered at all.

Even so, a circus filled with performing animals wouldn't be within the life-experience of any children at all these days, so I am surprised (but pleased!) that the Galliano books are still being published.

[Courtenay]

Even so, a circus filled with performing animals wouldn't be within the life-experience of any children at all these days...

True, but nor would a flying chair or a tree that leads up to magic lands — I presume...

[Rob Houghton]

You mean you've never had a Wishing Chair or been up a faraway tree?

[Courtenay]

Oh, plenty of times, but never outside my imagination, unfortunately!

(Do you know, I've only just realised — thinking about it — that my childhood mental image of the Faraway Tree bears a strange resemblance to a gigantic gum tree (eucalyptus to the rest of you)?? No idea why... )