The Enid Blyton Society

Hi, I work for a small arts/heritage organisation and one of the things we're looking into for next years is commisioning an artist who has an idea for a deck of tarrot cards based on Famous Five Eileen Soper illustrations. The print run will only be a couple of dozen packs of cards but I'm trying to track down who owns the copyright to her illustraions now if they haven't already gone into the public domain. Any help anyone could give would be most appreciated.

Thank,
Dan Gibson

I don't actually know, but my guess is either the estate of Eileen Soper or the publishers themselves (I believe that they are simply called Hodder or Hodder Headline these days) Try emailing the publishers to ask.

Being a Tarot kind of gal, I'm not sure how the FF and Tarot will get on, as it were. But each to their own, I suppose!!!

The estate of Eileen Soper is administered by

The Chris Beetles Gallery
8-10 Ryder St
St James
London
SW1Y 6QB

However, back in the summer they assured me that they have control of all of Eileens work EXCEPT that of the Famous Five!

If you have any success in finding out who does control these Rights I would be very pleased to know!

Viv

What's the bet it's Chorion or some TV network? (there my Cynical Hat making another appearance!)

You'd think the people controlling Eileen Soper's estate would at least know who the rights were sold to, but obviously Viv's already checked that avenue out.

As far as I am aware the rights on illustrations remain with the publisher who paid for then for 25yrs after the death of the illustrator and then revert to the estate of the author for a further 25 yrs. (this is certainly the case with Thomas Henry who illustrated the Just William stories)If that is the case then Hodder still control the Soper Famous Five illustrations from the Famous Five books. The matter is, however, complicated in as far as the Famous Five have been trademarked. Thus to use the Famous Five in anything would probably require a licence. Certainly, when I wrote "The Famous Five, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know" the Enid Blyton Company had to agree to all aspects and received half the royalty on the book - just because it was Famous Five related.

Dan wrote:Hi, I work for a small arts/heritage organisation and one of the things we're looking into for next years is commisioning an artist who has an idea for a deck of tarrot cards based on Famous Five Eileen Soper illustrations. The print run will only be a couple of dozen packs of cards but I'm trying to track down who owns the copyright to her illustraions now if they haven't already gone into the public domain. Any help anyone could give would be most appreciated.

Thank,
Dan Gibson

I wonder what became of this idea.I would never have thought of connecting Tarot Cards with Famous Five illustrations - not even Betty Maxey ones!

Hopefully the idea died the death it deserved - ridiculously inappropriate.

As the original post is well over eleven years old, I think we would have seen them in the shops by now. Totally inappropriate, I would think.

Incidentally, I didn't realise that Norman Wright had ever posted. I see he only posted twice.

Makes one wonder what kind of fortunes one could tell with a Famous Five tarot pack...

Courtenay wrote:Makes one wonder what kind of fortunes one could tell with a Famous Five tarot pack...

You are about to embark on an adventure...you will capture baddies...you will eat a big farmhouse tea tomorrow...

You'll drink lashings of ginger beer...

A close relative who is a scientist will have his secrets stolen...

Then the Death Card appears, and a yelp from Timmy is heard.....

I think I'll be the only one here who likes the idea, but I'll risk saying it!

I love reading tarot cards and have about 15 different decks, and I have to say that a Blyton inspired one sounds very appealing and could have scope for some marvellous artwork.

I'm not sure if anyone here knows how they work but the predictions they can offer have nothing to do with the style of artwork, so they wouldn't be predicting anything to do with scientists (just as an example) just because the card had Uncle Quentin on it. (obviously if the person you're doing the reading for was involved with a real life scientist then that's different!) But what I'm trying to say is that the result of the reading is about the person's actual life and not the style of the cards.
I've got ocean-themed cards with mermaids on them but that doesn't mean I'm going to meet a mermaid!
I've also got woodland themed ones but I've yet to meet the Green Man or a faun!

You have to interpret the meaning of the card, not how the character is illustrated.
So for example, the Emperor, can mean a successful man (amongst other things) and this is what you have to look at, not whether he is depicted as a faun, a merman, or Bill Smugs!

The main deck (the major arcana) is made up of the important cards that you've probably heard of like The Magician, The Emperor, Death, The Devil, The Star, The Sun, The Moon, The Priest, etc, and I just think they would look so lovely illustrated with some wonderful Blyton characters and settings, a wrecker's tower in the moonlight, an old castle, some of the notorious baddies, and some of the goodies too!

So, apologies for bucking the trend but I think they'd look fantastic!