Uncollected Pip the Pixie Stories in the Cave

[Moonraker]

Fascinating articles. We owe Pete and Anita much credit for pointing us to the wonders of the Cave, when we really should be exploring it ourselves. Thanks, both.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Cheers, Nigel! Thanks to Tony too, and David Chambers in some cases, for making the material available.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Gosh, Pip learns a rather frightening lesson from a mussel in this week's story - though he and Jinky really are naughty at times!


https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4178

[Anita Bensoussane]

Another delightful story. It's amusing to think of Pip asking a grasshopper if he may borrow his musical instrument!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4179

[Courtenay]

Yes, that was a sweet story — and perhaps better for the party that it wasn't livened up by Pip's boom-diddy-boom, diddy-boom!!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thistle-down is the theme this time. Reading about Pip and Jinky doing something for Aunt Twinkle is lovely, though the story is a reminder that colder weather will soon be here!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4180

[Courtenay]

That's a lovely story, although I find it surprising that Aunt Twinkle at the end says that Jinky can wear her bed-jacket when he has a cold... what about Pip?? Or maybe he already has permission to do so, since he's her nephew? It just comes across as a bit odd, when both pixies worked together to collect the thistle-down for her.

[Anita Bensoussane]

It is a bit odd. Aunt Twinkle mentions near the beginning of the story that she's just bought Pip some new clothes, so maybe Jinky is more likely to need to borrow her jacket.

[Anita Bensoussane]

This story about what happens to a lizard is similar to several other tales (or tails!) but it's a fascinating facet of nature. I witnessed it in real life when magpies and cats attacked slow worms in the garden of my old house. I like the idea of Pip and Jinky playing at being lizards!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4181

[Courtenay]

Yes, there's one in the published collection where Pip is playing with some lizards and he pulls one of their tails and it breaks off, leaving Pip horrified until Aunt Twinkle explains that the lizard will grow another one. I think I like this uncollected story better, though, as it's a nice change to not have Pip being naughty for once!

I've also seen the tiny lizards we have in Australia — skinks, as they're called — drop their tails in defence. I remember when I was very little, my sister told me about that and advised me never to pick up a skink by its tail for that reason! One time my cat, Blacky, tried to catch a skink and it broke its tail and escaped, leaving Blacky playing with the dismembered tail and acting rather pleased with his hunting prowess... (Blacky wasn't very bright and almost never caught anything unless our other cat, Kasha, had caught and killed it first and then Blacky had nicked it off her.) Another time when I was doing some gardening for my grandma, a skink ran out from somewhere with a deep gash at the base of its tail, and for a second I thought I must have accidentally hit the poor thing with my trowel, until I twigged it was simply halfway through casting its tail off in fright. I was sorry to have made a skink waste its best survival trick on me when of course I would never have harmed it intentionally, but it quickly hid itself again, so I hope it stayed safe until its tail grew back.

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's interesting to hear about the skinks, Courtenay.

Pip ought to have known what might happen if he rode a toad, as this is by no means his first encounter with one!

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=4182

[Courtenay]

Yes, I've noticed that quite a few of these uncollected stories are very similar to the ones we know from the published collections. I suppose that's why they weren't reprinted, as there were other Pip stories with the same or very similar themes and whoever collected them for the books must have had to decide which ones were the best?

Now out of interest, I've just had a look in the Cave, and the stories collected in the two Pip books (The Adventures of Pip and More Adventures of Pip, later reprinted in one volume) were all originally published in the Sunday Graphic in 1945 and 1946. The uncollected ones we've been looking at are mostly from later than that (the one Anita has just shared is from 1948, the same year the two collections were published). Maybe Enid's earlier stories about Pip tended to be the stronger ones, and then she started recycling ideas as time went on? Some of these uncollected ones are as good as the ones that were republished, but many of them come across as a bit shallower and less interesting and informative. (As I've mentioned before, I found the single-volume Dean edition of the Pip stories as a 9-year-old in Australia and was completely enchanted by them — and now as an adult living in England, I still keep running across little facets of the natural world here that have me remembering, "Pip taught me that!" )

[Anita Bensoussane]

I think Enid Blyton herself would have selected the stories for The Adventures of Pip and More Adventures of Pip. If I remember correctly, another Pip book was planned but nothing came of it.

[Kate Mary]

I didn't know another Pip book was planned, with 137 uncollected stories there was plenty of material to choose from, but we're so lucky to have them in the Cave to read.

[David Chambers]

Something else in the Cave you might like to compare is this 1945 uncollected story I've just added to the Sunday Mail
https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/bly ... perid=2396