Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Green Hedges wrote:Anita says something very interesting in her "Enid the Writer' piece elsewhere on the EBS site, so I'll paste that in here:
In Chapter 14 of The Story of My Life (1952) Enid Blyton takes us through the process of writing a book, giving The Enchanted Wood (1939) as an example. This is an odd choice, since several key elements of The Enchanted Wood (which, incidentally, was written thirteen years before The Story of My Life) had been used previously in earlier works. These elements may have suddenly sprung into her mind as she worked on The Enchanted Wood, but they were certainly not new creations. Enid ignores that, presenting some of these things as having popped into her head completely out of the blue as she wrote the book, and declaring that she was as surprised by them as anyone.

She tells us that she began with the characters of Jo, Bessie and Fanny. Then she followed a winding path through a wood in her imagination, and suddenly saw "the strange Faraway Tree, a tree that touches the sky, and is the home of little folk. I had never heard of it, or seen it till that moment—but there it is, complete in every detail." In reality, Enid Blyton had already been acquainted with the Faraway Tree for about three years before writing The Enchanted Wood, as she had first written about the tree in The Yellow Fairy Book (1936.)

Enid Blyton goes on to describe climbing the tree in her imagination and seeing a door at the top: "... before I can knock, it is opened, and there stands a round, red-faced, twinkling-eyed little fellow, beaming at me. I know who it is, though I have never in my life seen him before. It is Moonface, of course." Once again, further investigation reveals that Enid Blyton had created Moonface previously. He too had appeared in The Yellow Fairy Book, complete with little round room and slippery-slip.

Enid then writes: "I can hear a strange noise—a jingling-jangling, clinking-clanking noise. What is it? Ah, yes, you know, because you have read the book. But at that moment the story hasn't even been written yet, so I don't know. I have to look and see what makes the noise." It is the Saucepan Man, hung with clanking pots and pans, but then Enid Blyton ought to have known that since she had dreamt up the character of the Saucepan Man thirteen years earlier, when writing The Enid Blyton Book of Brownies (1926.)

She describes following Moonface and the Saucepan Man up the topmost branch of the Faraway Tree to discover that "A little yellow ladder stretches surprisingly from the last branch, up through a purple hole in the cloud that lies on the top of the tree." "Surprisingly" may not be quite the right word, as the ladder and cloud also featured in The Yellow Fairy Book.

So, it appears that in The Story of My Life Enid Blyton is giving us a somewhat fictionalised account of the writing of The Enchanted Wood, making things neater and simpler than they really were. Some valuable insights into her creativity may still be gleaned from her account, but it does not portray the whole truth of what was obviously a rather more complex process.
This stresses a difficulty of this exercise. We may not always be able to take at face value something Enid writes in an Old Thatch letter to children, for example.
Although I've unfortunately never found time to update it, further information has come to light since I wrote that. The Faraway Tree and Moonface did not appear in the first edition of The Yellow Fairy Book but were put into the story later on for some reason (perhaps in 1952 when the book was retitled The Queer Adventure - I'm not sure). Incidentally, that book has had several titles over the years. I've mentioned two already but it has also been called The Marvellous Adventure and The Faraway Tree Adventure.
Rob Houghton wrote:I find it a bit odd that you suggest Enid was 'allowed' to plug her books in her Sunny Stories letters...as surely Enid had full rein to do whatever she liked, as she had full control over the Sunny Stories magazine by this time, and no one would have told her what she could and couldn't do.
I think Newnes (who published Sunny Stories) did put some restrictions in place when it came to advertising other publishers' books and related ephemera, though I forget the details.
Rob Houghton wrote:I tend to think its a bit iffy to believe what Enid wrote in her letters in Sunny Stories and in The Enid Blyton Magazine. As you say - we may not be able to take what she writes at face value - in fact, some of it was probably pure fantasy - or embroidered anyway. I often get this impression when going through the Enid Blyton Magazine letters for my reviews each fortnight. I'm quite sure that sometimes Enid was coming out with happenings that never really happened...or maybe they happened years before...or could have happened but didn't. She was above all a teacher and a story teller - so I think quite often her 'letter life' owed more to fiction than to fact. 8)
Good point, Rob. I tend to agree.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Rob Houghton »

Yes - Moonface etc only appeared in 'The Yellow Fairy Book' when it was reprinted (and partially rewritten) as 'The Queer Adventure' in 1952. A similarly tall tree does appear in The Yellow Fairy Book, but it isn't called 'The Faraway Tree' and as far as I remember it has a winding staircase inside its trunk, rather than a 'slippery slip'! :-D
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Tony Summerfield »

I'm afraid that I am not going to follow the masses on this one, as I am confident in my own mind that Enid completed every book before it was serialised it would have been extremely difficult for the illustrators to have done otherwise and indeed for Enid herself to have to come back to a serial once a week when she had so many other writing commitments. (I do admit that there is one book that I have never been totally sure of, Shadow the Sheep-Dog.) In 1937/38 she had to do three stories a week for Sunny Stories and also one for Teachers World. As well as Secret Island being published in 1938, there was Two Years in the Infant School which contained 252 specially written stories.

I have read every Diary entry for the 21 weeks that 'Secret Island' was published and there is no mention of any book throughout that entire period. I not only have the whole Diary on my computer, but I also have all Barbara Stoney's archives which include anything of interest from every Diary that she saw. I also read all the Diaries myself looking for anything about books and there really wasn't very much.

I don't want to sound unkind but I think it is important to separate 'authentic research' from pure speculation.

For those that don't know I do a monthly thread which deals with Sunny Stories issues from 80 years ago and I would rather not look ahead if this thread is going to continue as it does rather spoil things.
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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Green Hedges »

Rob. Yes, as Anita says, Enid is unlikely to have been allowed to plug other publishers' books at this stage of her career. Towards the end of its serialisation, Enid may even have known that Blackwell was going to publish The Secret Island and wasn't able to say so! Actually, Hugh and Newnes didn't handle their golden egg-layer very well. The major series's (after Wishing Chair and Faraway Tree) all went to other publishers: Blackwell, Methuen, Brockhampton and Hodder and Stoughton. No doubt, in some cases, because Enid falling out with Hugh stymied Newnes, long-term.

Tony. I'm sorry you think I'm working in the field of 'pure speculation', especially since I'm trying to trace all theories back to the evidence contained in stories, diaries etc.

The reason that there is little mention of the writing of specific books in Enid's 1937/38 diaries could be that Enid may not have been devoting whole weeks to the writing of single works. So she keeps saying 'Worked till lunch'. Or 'Worked till tea.' Rather than 'Worked on Wishing Chair'. Or 'Worked on Secret Island'. 'Worked till lunch' may be more feasible shorthand for 'Worked on Brer Rabbit, the Wishing Chair, Mr Meddle and two stand alone short stories.'!

Sunny Stories is filled with short stories and its almost a logical development for her to say to herself, "Why don't I connect these up and try and tell a story in episodes. And so gradually she creeps closer, over a year or two, to be confident in her ability to write novel-length works for children.' Walking before you can run seems quite feasible! Of course, it is only a hypothesis at this stage. But it is worth testing against the facts. And that's what I for one will continue to try and do.

Good point about the illustration side of things. Though I believe these illustrators worked quickly and professionally and if they had a weekly commission to do, for the well-paying Sunny Stories, then the illustrators would have just had to comply with the deadlines, as Enid would and did.

Interesting that the illustrations for the Sunny Stories version of In the Fifth at Malory Towers are all different from those in the published book. Yet Stanley Lloyd did both. I think that gets back to rivalries between publishers and copyright. Sunny Stories was Newnes, yet the book was finally published by Methuen.

Also, once it was Enid Blyton's Magazine publishing Five On a Secret Trail, Eileen Soper was producing sketches for the mag, and more finished drawings (in my opinion) for the Hodder and Stoughton books. Could it be possible that this much later book was written in a serial fashion also?! In other words, although from The Treasure Hunters in late 1939, Enid knew she could blast the books out, I dare say she still had the capacity to write a book in serial fashion. Now that is largely speculation. But I feel it's something worth thinking about and checking against the facts where there is an opportunity to do so.

Tony, looking again at your post on this thread, I feel you just want me to shut up and go away. You even seem to hint that if this thread continues, you will stop doing an aspect of your own work. Nobody wants that, as your work is so valuable and underpins all present and future Enid Blyton studies.

A somewhat discomfited,

Duncan :(
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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Rob Houghton »

Green Hedges wrote:Sunny Stories is filled with short stories and its almost a logical development for her to say to herself, "Why don't I connect these up and try and tell a story in episodes. And so gradually she creeps closer, over a year or two, to be confident in her ability to write novel-length works for children.' Walking before you can run seems quite feasible! Of course, it is only a hypothesis at this stage. But it is worth testing against the facts. And that's what I for one will continue to try and do.
It's worth remembering that actually Enid had written several novels before The Secret Island - books that were published as books rather than serials - such as The Yellow Fairy Book, The Green Goblin Book, and The Book of Brownies, all of which are fairly non-episodic stories. :-D

It seemed to be quite common for magazine serials to have different illustrations to the books, especially Famous Five serials and Secret Seven serials. I'm not sure what other full length books were illustrated with different illustrations, but I should think it depended who published the books and if the publisher was different to the magazine publisher.
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Green Hedges wrote:Tony, looking again at your post on this thread, I feel you just want me to shut up and go away. You even seem to hint that if this thread continues, you will stop doing an aspect of your own work. Nobody wants that, as your work is so valuable and underpins all present and future Enid Blyton studies.
It isn't anything personal, Duncan. It's just that Tony has been involved with all things Blyton for many years and some of our speculation doesn't fit with what he has picked up from her workbooks, diaries, etc.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, the "80 Years Ago..." thread is here:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... &start=165" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We're looking at snippets from Sunny Stories (letters, puzzles and uncollected stories, poems and illustrations) month by month, eighty years after the magazines were published.
Rob Houghton wrote:
Green Hedges wrote:Sunny Stories is filled with short stories and its almost a logical development for her to say to herself, "Why don't I connect these up and try and tell a story in episodes. And so gradually she creeps closer, over a year or two, to be confident in her ability to write novel-length works for children.' Walking before you can run seems quite feasible! Of course, it is only a hypothesis at this stage. But it is worth testing against the facts. And that's what I for one will continue to try and do.
It's worth remembering that actually Enid had written several novels before The Secret Island - books that were published as books rather than serials - such as The Yellow Fairy Book, The Green Goblin Book, and The Book of Brownies, all of which are fairly non-episodic stories. :-D
True. Enid Blyton's first full-length novel, The Enid Blyton Book of Brownies, was written as early as 1926.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Tony Summerfield »

Green Hedges wrote:Tony, looking again at your post on this thread, I feel you just want me to shut up and go away.
Duncan :(
Not at all, Duncan, I enjoy your enthusiasm. I will say more at a later stage but I'm afraid that I am a bit busy today and I will be away from my computer.
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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Green Hedges »

That's good to read, Tony. Thanks. I too am off-computer today. Attending a symposium. Not on Enid Blyton, alas.

Thanks for your post too, Anita, I must remind myself about these Brownie/Fairy/Goblin books Rob and you mention. :D
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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Green Hedges »

Just noticed that The Enchanted Wood, the 4th of the Sunny Stories serials, was published as a book in May 1939, later in the same month as it was finished as a serial. The book would have had to be in the publishers’ hands several months before publication. So it couldn’t have been written serially, not right to the end. So that backs up Enid’s claim to have written the book in the way she was famous for writing her books latterly. And the same applies to the third serial, Galliano’s Circus, which was serialized between April and September 1938, but published as a book by Newnes in September 38. All that info comes from Tony’s work for the Barbara Stoney biog reprint and his Index to Sunny Stories booklet.

Wishing Chair, the first serial, began to appear in SS in Jan 37 and finished September 17 1937. It was published by Newnes in November, 37. Again I would have thought the finished manuscript would have to be in the hands of illustrators and publishers well before September.

The second serial,The Secret Island was serialized from Sep 37 to Jan 38, published by Basil Blackwell in September 1938. A bit more leeway there, serial writing is a possibility. But if the others were written as books then probably that one was as well.
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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by pete9012S »

Image
"Drat! That clever Scottish author sees through my disguises every time!"
Green Hedges wrote:What keeps you from this important task, Pete? It's a bit early to be delivering presents around town in your Santa Claus outfit! Maybe you're riding around in a ginger wig, just for the Hell of it. Yes, that will be it.
Looks like my secret is out!!


I enjoyed reading through all your research and thoughts on 'HOW ENID WROTE HER BOOKS (new facts emerge)' Duncan.
Thank you very much indeed for sharing it with us.

I was especially impressed at the way you spotted that Enid was reading from The Children of Cherry Tree Farm too.

ps.
Any more Find Outers reviews in the pipeline soon at all?
By my reckoning there's only three to go if you decide to include everyone's book they love to hate, Banshee Towers! :D

Best Wishes

Pete
" A kind heart always brings its own reward," said Mrs. Lee.
- The Christmas Tree Aeroplane -

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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Green Hedges »

Brilliant, Pete!

I can imagine Fatty walking the steets of Peterswood every December, wearing a Santa Claus hat and a ginger wig and Goon not noticing he was wearing either cos they so beautifully cancel each other out!!! :D

Fatty: "Merry Xmas, Goon"
Goon: "There should be no such thing as Xmas for mischief-makers like you."

I'm in no hurry to finish the Find-Outers 'reviews' but I will finish them, Banshee Towers and all.

Duncan
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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Green Hedges »

In the light of some of the above posts, I've added a fifth section to 'How Enid Wrote Her Books'.

To view it scroll through the first four sections of the piece here: http://www.enidblyton.me.uk/styled-28/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Spoiler alert. It has involved revealing some of the content of Enid's Old Thatch letters from issues of Sunny Stories in 1938 and 1939, so if you'd rather see the Sunny Stories in a more rounded way, issue by issue, courtesy of Tony, hold off for further additions to the topic that Anita refers to in her last post on this thread. But they are essential to an understanding of what Enid was doing in her book writing at the time, so I've really needed to quote them here. Besides, I think the threads complement each other rather than compete.

Pete, when you opened your Xmas present I feel you may have been just slightly disappointed that there were only four parts to it. If you search again through the discarded packaging you'll find a fifth part, all shiny and new!

That may be it from me for now. I've come down with a bad case of fiddle-faddlitis and have taken to my bed. Never mind, Flip will look after me. :)

Duncan
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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by pete9012S »

I've read the new section and enjoyed it. Thanks for all your research once again Duncan.
Then at the start of 1932 - inside a month, as her diary tells us - she wrote a full-length adult novel, The Caravan Goes On. This was rejected by a literary agent and her diary doesn’t mention it again, according to Barbara Stoney so I'm sure that will be so.
I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if Enid's first adult book had been a runaway success? Did she want to be an adult author or an author for children and adults?

It seems she wasn't suited to adult writing, and being perfectly selfish about it I'm quite glad!

Hope you feel more sprightly soon Duncan. Please keep yourself warm and well drammed up as it must be even more bitter up in the wilds of Scotland than even here in the frozen north!

Best Wishes

Pete
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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Rob Houghton »

Interesting thoughts. I'm still not convinced that Enid wrote her stories 'weekly' though - or chapter by chapter. Enid's letters to children make it SEEM as if she was writing 'The Wishing Chair' week by week - but to me this is just pandering to her readers - making it seem that she never knows what adventures the chair will have - 'dumbing it down' into a childlike way of explaining things, so that children can more easily identify with her writing process. After all, children themselves write 'stories' - they rarely (at the age of 5 - 9) will write a full novel! So I tend to think, as she usually did, Enid is writing in a way children will more easily identify with. In other words, as usual, she's being economical with the truth.

Its my belief that most of Enid's letters - as with 'Letters from Bobs' etc - were works of fiction. Yes - they contain facts too - but they are shunted around and made to fit. Sometimes something that happened six years ago is made to appear to have happened last week. Enid created an image for herself and it wasn't always based on reality. She tended to shy away from reality in fact.

One point I did notice, which is wrong - The Adventures of Binkle and Flip wasn't published in 1938 - it was published in 1925 (under the title 'The Book of Bunnies' :-) )
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Enid's 1937-1940 diaries

Post by Tony Summerfield »

I am totally convinced that she never wrote serials on a weekly basis. Duncan has been beavering away madly, but the main problem is that there is really very little fact to go on and inevitably everything has got to be speculation. I don't really go for speculation as it can quickly turn into fact - Corfe Castle is Kirrin Castle and without it we would not have had the Famous Five! :roll: Obviously Enid was mistaken when she said that she based the village, island and castle on something she saw on Jersey. :D I do admit that I have to speculate on most of the books produced by Birn Brothers as none are dated and there are no written records of any sort to go from. There are 17 books listed in her workbook (which only goes up to 1926) that still haven't turned up and there are 39 books that I have seen, none of which are in the British Library.

So let's have some fact for March 1926, a busy month for Enid and here is what she wrote:-
March 1-4 The Book of Brownies Chapters 1 to 3
March 5-11 Work for Teachers World and a long short story for Newnes
March 12-17 The Book of Brownies Chapters 4 to 8
March 19-28 Teachers World, work for a Newnes Annual, 4 short books for Birn Brothers and 1 book for Nelson
March 29-31 The Book of Brownies Chapters 9 to 11

She took five days off before writing the short final chapter on April 6 and two days later on April 8 she started the Bird Book and went straight through that. Every book that she worked on in the four year period of this workbook went from start to finish with the only interruptions for work that was needed on a regular basis.

I have said before that her Diaries are of interest in finding out more about Enid the person but very little help on her work, all the details of which were kept in separate books, Sunny Stories letters tell us virtually nothing and as far as work goes her weekly letter in Teachers World tells us next to nothing.

One other thing that might interest Duncan is that the Zoo Book he pictured was a new edition published in November 1926. The original book had a polar bear on the cover and had no colour plates.

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