The Enid Blyton Society

Enid Blyton's Magazine

Enid Blyton parted company from Newnes and Sunny Stories in 1953 and launched Enid Blyton's Magazine with Evans Brothers. The reason for this was that Newnes were only prepared to advertise the books that they published and Enid wanted a much broader field to advertise her books, jigsaws, toys and games. This magazine ran to 162 issues until Enid's failing health caused its closure in 1959.

None of these magazines is titled, so in each case I have used the title of the first story. Apart from the stories, all issues had a lengthy introductory letter from Enid, along with puzzles, competitions and information on her various charities.

One of the major bonuses of Enid Blyton's Magazine is that many of the serialised stories used illustrations that were not used in the later books. In the case of the various serialised Famous Five books, none of Eileen Soper's illustrations were used in the books which were all freshly illustrated and of course the magazines also contain many more illustrations than the books. Unlike Sunny Stories many illustrations were printed in two colours, normally red and black, though both green and black and blue and black were also used for a short period.

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I'm really enjoying my bundle of magazines that recently arrived at my doorstep.
It must have been wonderful to receive one of these magazines every two weeks if you were a fan of Enid Blyton.
My little collection starts in 1954 @ 4d. and by 1959 the magazines cost 4 1/2d.
I'm not sure what those prices would be in today's money??

Here's a brief sample of what the magazines contain.At first glance I thought these two stories were rather similar,although published about five years apart,see what you think:

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Both stories include a reward,but the amount received varies enormously.
Could the first amount in the first story have been a mistake??

Quite probably, Pete. £50 back in 1954, the year I was born, was a tremendous amount of money. Five years later the children only got £2, much more lifelike. And definitely similarities in the stories. I've bought a couple of Enid Blyton Magazines from book fairs, they were 50p each if I remember correctly. I shall have to look out for some more.

Yes, those two stories are very similar! Mind you, given the sheer volume of Enid's output and how rapidly she wrote, it's not really at all surprising that she could repeat a theme a few years later in another short story, perhaps without even realising it.

I suppose a diamond necklace - if they were real diamonds - would be worth a lot more than a relatively simple gold one. If the gold necklace was an alloy with a relatively low percentage of real gold (9 ct gold, for instance) or made of a cheaper metal with pure gold plating, it would be more the sort of thing a middle-class woman could have afforded in the early 1950s. I imagine the diamond necklace lady to have been rather more upper class!

But anyway, two nice little stories in the classic Enid Blyton vein with a satisfying moral message - those who are kind to living creatures are rewarded, while the ones who were trying to harm the birds missed out. I think I prefer the first story - I like the way it has a lone character, a boy, standing up for what he knows is right rather than going along with the gang mentality of his friends. Jack Trent would have been proud of Bob!

Also enjoyed seeing, in the later magazine, the two letters from "faraway readers" in Australia and South Africa! Enid still has plenty of fans in both those countries to this day. I wonder where Elizabeth from Ryde in New South Wales and Barbara from Durbanville in Cape Province are today - and do they still love Enid Blyton?

It's fun to read the two stories one after the other, Pete. Like Courtenay, I particularly like the first one where Bob acts alone.

According to these links

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the average weekly wage (for a male) in 1954 was £9/9/, and the average weekly wage in 2015 is £488.58. That means a £50 reward was more than five times the average weekly wage and would be like receiving more than £2443 today!

I really enjoyed those two short stories, thanks Pete - and yes, they are remarkably alike! Bill, Pete and Martin from the first story, came across as particularly unpleasant characters in my opinion (although I think there is never a reason to hurt an innocent creature, the boy in the second story was provoked by a Jackdaw stealing his mother's necklace). It was nice that Bob defended the birds, despite being one against three.

The significant difference in the reward does seem strange, but perhaps the reward of £50, which would have been so large back then, was indeed a mistake? Those are really interesting figures thanks, Anita. It is interesting that today, £50 would have the value of £2443. It seems like a very large reward for a necklace.

£50 does seem like a large reward - especially with Anita's calculation of what it would be in today's money - but then, this week in another jackdaw story in Enid's Teacher's World letter, we've just seen an aunt offering £20 for the return of her diamond ring (which was worth £300, we're told). That was written in 1931, more than 20 years before the story with the £50 reward for the diamond necklace. So perhaps the latter wasn't a mistake after all - presumably a necklace with several diamonds would have been worth more than a ring with only one - or else, perhaps Enid didn't have much of a realistic idea of the value of these things and just plucked out figures that would sound suitably like a huge amount of reward money!

This is slightly off topic, but reading about Pete's bumper buy reminded me of an email I got a few days ago which I haven't yet got round to answering:-

I have a collection of The Enid Blyton Society Journal, nos. 1 - 32 in perfect condition which I am looking to sell. I believe quite a few of these are no longer available as back issues having sold out.

Are these something you would be interested in or do you know somebody who would be interested in buying them as a job lot? I'd be looking for around £50.00 the lot.

I am not interested, but I am sure someone here might be. I think in view of the horrendous postage costs to send these overseas it would need to be someone in the UK. If anyone is interested let me know and I will give you his name and email address or give him yours if you would prefer.

I was looking at your opening post in this thread and your quote, Pete, and I wondered who had copied it as I was sure that I wrote that and then I realised where you took it from!!

Tony Summerfield wrote: I have a collection of The Enid Blyton Society Journal, nos. 1 - 32 in perfect condition which I am looking to sell. I believe quite a few of these are no longer available as back issues having sold out.

Are these something you would be interested in or do you know somebody who would be interested in buying them as a job lot? I'd be looking for around £50.00 the lot.

I am not interested, but I am sure someone here might be. I think in view of the horrendous postage costs to send these overseas it would need to be someone in the UK. If anyone is interested let me know and I will give you his name and email address or give him yours if you would prefer.

Just sent you an email, Tony.

And I have just replied to say that you were the first person to contact me!

Gosh, don't say I've missed the boat for the early Journals!! That'll teach me to go and leave the computer to run people around for a favour!

Sounds like a good deal! I have 18 of the first 32 journals though, so it's not quite such good value for the remaining 14 (assuming there would be postage added on to the £50). On saying that, it's still probably cheaper than you could pick them up individually on eBay.

I'll leave them to Courtenay, however, as she got in there first.

Gah! Yet again Courtenay has pipped me to the post. Ah well as Fiona says I can't complain as I've a number of those particular early Journals already, and mainly due to the generosity of the lovely members of this very website. I still can't help but be a little envious though! Hope you enjoy them all Courtenay.

That is annoying. I've only just noticed this thread. I have all the journals from 33 onwards, so 1 - 32 would have been perfect. Well done Courtenay in snapping them up.

Ouch. I shouldn't have posted publicly, I guess. I'd thought it was most likely someone else would already have contacted Tony well before I got there, but decided it was worth a try. Now I feel a bit awful.

On the other hand, given the interest that's being shown, maybe I could make a bit of a profit by flogging them off to the highest bidder...

No need to feel awful Courtenay. Hope you enjoy the Journals.