The Enid Blyton Society

Yes - Its quite plain when you look at the letter more closely. Mind you, its still something I'd like to find in a £1 book!

Great to see you Walter!

Tony Summerfield wrote:I have only just seen this and I was puzzled when someone from the BBC website approached me this morning and I'm afraid I replied that I knew nothing about it! If I had seen this I would have immediately said that it is just printed and the only handwritten thing was the name 'Mary' and that was not written by Enid Blyton - just look at the 'y'!

I share your view, Tony. The letter looks printed except the name of "Mary".

I am amazed at the amount of publicity this received, you might have thought it was the find of the century! I also cannot understand how sensible people do not not realise that something has simply been printed. This has happened many times in the past with the Coronation Bible which has a printed message from Enid inside it. I even had someone saying that their granny was a friend of Enid Blyton who had specially written this message for her - what utter tosh!

Talking of utter tosh, how can a bookseller say that there were no book signings done in those days! Authors have always done book signings and I have plenty of signed books from the same period that prove the point. As to this increasing the value I can't see too many collectors digging deep to buy a printed form glued into a copy of Silas Marner!!

Good points Tony - and a warm welcome back to Walter too!

sixret wrote:

Tony Summerfield wrote:I have only just seen this and I was puzzled when someone from the BBC website approached me this morning and I'm afraid I replied that I knew nothing about it! If I had seen this I would have immediately said that it is just printed and the only handwritten thing was the name 'Mary' and that was not written by Enid Blyton - just look at the 'y'!

I share your view, Tony. The letter looks printed except the name of "Mary".

I disagree that the letter 'looks printed'. Maybe its just my eyes, but in the photograph, its very hard to tell - it's only because we have Tony's expertise here that we know it's printed. From a photo, it looks hand written to me, with another person having added the word 'Mary'.

However, in real life, if the letter was here in front of me, I should imagine its easy to tell the letter is printed. Its very much like the letters to be found in the card games. I have one or two, and its easy to tell they are copies of a hand written letter rather than the real thing.

It makes sense that Enid would do this, as of course she had ten or eleven prize winners every fortnight in her Magazine - she would hardly have written to each winner individually - and its really just a more personal alternative to a typed letter.

There are two reasons that this letter is printed, in my opinion.

1) When we write using ink pen, normally there would be part of the word where the ink is not too bold especially the stroke. See the letter "M", "a", "r" and "y" in the word Mary. The ink is not consistent(some parts are darker than the other which is normal when using ink pen) throughout each letter. On the other hand, the rest of the written words( apart from Malry) have the consistent colour of bold black. For example the words "of my". The stroke between the word "of" and "my" is usually will have the lighter shade of black because at that point people dont usually emphasize the stroke.

2) From the wrinkle on top of the letter, I deduce the paper must have been damp before. The word "Mary" has a slight discolouration especially in letter "a" but the rest of the words in the damp circle do not show any discolouration that are supposed to be if the words are handwritten using ink pen. Hence my deduction that the letter must be printed. So, I share the same view with Tony.

So do I.

If as Rob says,Enid was sending out large amounts of pre-printed letters like these to all the many prize winners etc,has any other letter like this one ever surfaced over the years?

Don't quote me, lol - I only assumed a letter like this might be sent with every prize-winning book Enid sent out - but I don't know for sure! Maybe some people threw them away, realising they weren't handwritten letters after all. I presume they would actually have been sent out by Magazine employees rather than by Enid personally, and that's when the child's name would be added.

Tony Summerfield wrote:
Talking of utter tosh, how can a bookseller say that there were no book signings done in those days! Authors have always done book signings and I have plenty of signed books from the same period that prove the point. As to this increasing the value I can't see too many collectors digging deep to buy a printed form glued into a copy of Silas Marner!!

It wouldn't be the first time throughout human kind's history that someone is using alternative facts to get an advantage from it. I wouldn't be surprised should we learn later that the whole thing was arranged. Maybe some more of these individual letters will appear in the near future and people will be paying high prices to get one of them.

Tony Summerfield wrote:
Talking of utter tosh, how can a bookseller say that there were no book signings done in those days!

I guess it depends what sort of boos they sell...boos you'd say to a goose, boos you'd utter at a bad theatrical performance, or boos to scare someone?

Was the Silas Marner book the prize?

If so, does this mean that Mary never bothered to open the book, and thus never read it?

From the photos, it looks like the letter was pasted into the book (that's what the "damp patch" on it is - the glue), so I assume either Enid (or one of her staff) glued it in or the recipient did.

At a wild guess I rather doubt that Silas Marner would have been the prize book!!