The Enid Blyton Society

I am intrigued by a recent posting on the message board where it is mentioned that The Boy Next Door is nowadays severely edited. How is this? I do not recall anything in the book that could be seen as controversal , I really do get incensed at needless intervention.

The Boy Next Door was probably one of the first Enid Blyton books that I read as a child. It continued to be a favourite of mine and stood up to repeat reading. I considered it to be especially exciting as it contained Americans! At the time I considered them to to be rather god-like beings, even though I had never actually met any. The differences between their living standards and ours back in the early 1970s were quite marked and probably even more so when the book was first published. Enid Blyton also made much of this fact in The Queen Elizabeth Family.

What changes have actually taken place to the original book I wonder? At least there are unspoiled editions out there that can easily be purchased in a matter of minutes, where would we be without the internet?

The Boy Next Door has been edited here and there, to become a part of the Young Adventurers series. No major changes as far as I could notice, but changes nevertheless.

Six stand-alone books were re-written to form a series, as can be seen in the Book Listing:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/auth ... dventurers" target="_blank

Some storylines have been altered more than others to fit into the series but all the new stories revolve around characters called Nick and Katie. The language has been modernised to some extent, the children drink Coke, etc. A real shame to do that as the original books can now no longer be bought in the shops (except second-hand.)

Anita

Interesting. I consider myself fortunate that most of my childhood Blyton reading material was good solid unedited hardbacks from the 1940's/50's, some handed down from my family and others purchased at school fetes and jumble sales. As soon as I observed the words Enid Blyton on the spine, then that was it, I had to buy it!

Petermax wrote:As soon as I observed the words Enid Blyton on the spine, then that was it, I had to buy it!

Same here!

I have four of the six re-written books but the ones I have are all called "The Riddle of..," which is what the new series was called before being changed to "Young Adventurers." Surprisingly, the children in The Riddle of the Boy Next Door still play Red Indians - I thought that term would have been considered non-PC at the time the book came out in 1997.

Anita

The Boy Next Door, is one of my favourite books. So does this mean, in this new addition that the main characters of Robin, Betty and Lucy are not included? Or are the two other characters or Nick and Katie also included?

I do think it sad that the book has to change in this way, and that most readers just requiring this book, don't get the opportunity to read it as Enid wrote it.

Robin, Betty and Lucy have been replaced by Nick, Katie and Laura. Nick and Katie appear in all six books but Laura is only in a few titles.

Anita

Rather intrigued, I've been out today to buy this updated book of the Young Adventurers to read it for myself and see exactly how this book differs if any, from the original works.

Coincidentally I have been scanning more Sunny Stories covers for the Magazine Listing and I have just reached the issues that contained the serialisation of The Boy Next Door and I allowed myself to get side-tracked. I have now scanned all the Bestall illustrations from the book as well as all the illustrations from Sunny Stories that were not included in the first edition of the book and they are now in the Book Listing, a good way to spend a bank holiday weekend!! I still have to add the illustrations by Gilbert Dunlop from the Collins edition!

Bless you, Tony, for doing those illustrations. I love Alfred Bestall's work and his pictures for "The Boy Next Door" are outstanding. This book had two superb illustrators, it is a shame that in the modern editions the story has been totally mangled. Have you read "The Life and Work of Alfred Bestall" by Caroline Bott? It is well worth looking out for.

Kate.

It's great to see the illustrations from the Sunny Stories serialisation of The Boy Next Door, and the story summaries. Thanks, Tony! That plank between the windowsill and the tree looks rather precariously balanced, and the pictures of the birthday cake have made me feel hungry!

Anita

What wonderful illustrations! Alfred Bestall is probably more familiar to those of us who enjoyed reading the Rupert Bear annuals, how I loved the depiction of Nutwood and the surrounding countryside. The books were somehow never quite the same once Bestall retired, the detail simply was not there.

I remember Channel 4 broadcasting a documentary about Alfred Bestall back in 1982. This was rather unusual, as most of their output at the time was designed to shock. Sadly, I doubt that this programme survives except in the archives, it has never to my knowledge been repeated.

It seems a great pity that The Boy Next Door in its original form is no longer in print. Is there not a publisher out there who could produce unedited fascimile editions of Enid Blyton books for a nostalgic adult readership? Economics would probably prevent this I fear.

What lovely illustrations Tony. My favourite book, and the illustrations from the serialisation do it justice. A truely lovely story.

Anita Bensoussane wrote: The language has been modernised to some extent, the children drink Coke, etc.
Anita

There is quite a funny (from a modern point of view) comment right at the end of the book when the old caretaker says "I've a good mind to telephone him myself - but I dont rightly know how to use the thing". I've no doubt that in this day and age children would find it funny that someone should not know how to use a phone. It is, however, a very charming piece of nostalgia now, showing very clearly how things were in 1944.

I've just read this book for the first time in my life and was amazed by how good it was. I was strongly reminded of the Secret series what with a kidnapped heir, boats, islands and resourceful children outwitting kidnappers. It was written in 1944, just a year after The Secret of Killimooin and ten years before Moon Castle so I wonder if Blyton had that series in mind at all when she crafted the atmosphere in the book.

Either way its a very fine story and I'm dismayed to hear about its updating. It seems so unnecessary. They could have banded those books together under a generic title like Enid Blytons Young Adventure Series and still left them with their original characters at least. Oh well I'm very glad to have got an old 1965 hardback, without DJ but with Gilbert Dunlop's illustrations. The original Bestall pictures are definitely beautiful though.

Lucky Star wrote:

Anita Bensoussane wrote: The language has been modernised to some extent, the children drink Coke, etc.
Anita

There is quite a funny (from a modern point of view) comment right at the end of the book when the old caretaker says "I've a good mind to telephone him myself - but I dont rightly know how to use the thing". I've no doubt that in this day and age children would find it funny that someone should not know how to use a phone. It is, however, a very charming piece of nostalgia now, showing very clearly how things were in 1944.

Funnily enough, the caretaker still says that in the updated edition!
I seem to remember that, in one of the early Find-Outers books, the children feel apprehensive about using the telephone, though in later books they use it readily enough.

I consider The Boy Next Door to be an exciting story with some gripping elements - night-time jaunts, secret messages, a houseboat, a wicked uncle, Kit fearing for his life... I'm a bit surprised, though, that more isn't made of Kit's being American. His speech doesn't have much of an American flavour to it. Blyton informs us that Kit speaks "with a kind of drawl" and he does occasionally exclaim "My!", "You bet!" and "Sure!" However, most of the time he speaks just like a middle-class English child of that period, saying, "I say," "Crumbs," "Slept like a top" and "It's a fag for you to have to come all the way back..." (It's possible that some of these expressions were common in America too but to me they don't sound quite right.) When Blyton has Kit say: "Get into the little hanging cupboard...behind that curtain there..." I can't help thinking he should have said "closet" and "drapes."

I find it amusing that Kit likes to whistle "Yankee Doodle" - Blyton does tend to go for the obvious at times!

Robin seems to view America as a more dangerous place than safe old England when he remarks: "Kidnapping and things don't happen here as they do in America." Yet British children are of course more courageous and capable when it comes to the crunch ,as shown in a statement by an adult character at the end of the book: "Well, I always thought American children were pretty tough, but you beat everything, you three."

It's surprising that the children get away with making the old houseboat their own and doing it up without permission. They try to justify their actions by claiming that they're making the boat more valuable, not spoiling it, but the fact remains that it belongs to someone else.

I'm puzzled by the passage in which Lucy celebrates her eleventh birthday. She lights the candles on the cake and then cuts six pieces and hands them round. She and the others all eat their first piece of cake while having quite a lengthy conversation and then Lucy cuts them each a second piece and they talk some more. After that, Betty suddenly says about the candles: "Look - they're all burnt down now. Blow them out, Lucy - one big blow for the whole lot." What?! Does that mean that they ate the cake (or twelve pieces of it, at least) while the candles were still alight? Usually, the birthday person blows out the candles before the cake is cut while the others sing "Happy Birthday"!

All in all, The Boy Next Door is immense fun. I chuckle when one of the villains is told: "You are a rat and a worm!" and when Betty comments to a man celebrating his 42nd birthday: "Oh, aren't you old! Never mind - you're very nice."

Anita