Guide to what editions have been changed.

[MJE]

Hallo.

     The other day, in a shop selling second-hand books, I saw a large-format copy of the first two Wishing Chair books in one volume. (Are they the only ones? I have an idea there was a third book, or maybe a collection of short stories, or a couple of novellas - something additional, anyway.)
     This series, along with the fantasy-type books generally, are ones I never had as a child, or even showed any interest in - I came to Enid Blyton a bit too late in my childhood for these books to be my primary interest, so I went straight onto the Famous Five.
     However, I thought it may interest me to read some of these fantasy stories now. Although they will probably never be my main Blyton interest, I have heard others speak highly enough of them that I thought maybe I should catch up on them.
     So I looked through the book to see if would catch my interest.
     One of the main things I was concerned with was whether the text was the original as Enid Blyton wrote it, or edited in some way, as so many of her books have been from around the 1970s onwards. I looked through the pages trying to see any evidence of editing or alterations. I tried to think if this series contained any characters whose names or behaviour had been changed because of political correctness, but couldn't think of any. (Dame Snap instead of Dame Slap, perhaps? Rick and Franny instead of Dick and Fanny? But those were in the Faraway Tree books, not the Wishing Chair ones - I do sometimes mix these two up in my mind, no doubt due to not being familiar with either series.)
     The book was fully illustrated throughout in colour, in the style where even the text appears on the coloured background of illustrations next to it. I tried to find a date for the edition, since this is often a guide as to the likelihood of editing - I am usually very wary about buying any editions after about 1970 or so. However, this copy had no date on it, no copyright information whatever. It looked quite a nice edition, though, so I continued looking.
     Ah - I finally found what I was looking for: a reference to something costing 25 pence (or something like that). The currency had been tampered with: Enid Blyton surely would have said 2 shillings and sixpence, or 2/6 or similar.
     Maybe currency changes like this are less problematical than some other changes; but I reasoned that, if they had changed the currency, they could also have changed anything else they thought needed it.
     I immediately put the book back on the shelf and walked out without buying it.

     Which leads me to my question: is there any web site about Enid Blyton which has a section focusing on how to detect whether any edition has been tampered with or not? Are there standard indicators, standard signs, to watch out for in each novel or series which are a telltale sign that tampering has taken place? Does such a list circulate amongst Enid Blyton collectors?
     Such a list might go something like this, in part (using the few examples I can think of just now):

  Famous Five series:
    Gypsies referred to as "travellers".
    Aunt Fanny changed to Aunt Frances.
    Five Go Off to Camp:
      Reference to George looking like a "black boy" as she came out of a chimney removed. [Give page or chapter number.]

  Adventure series:
    The Island of Adventure:
      Black character Jo-Jo becomes Joe, and is white, and doesn't roll his eyes, showing the whites

  The Children of Kidillin:
    Criminals' dog Nigger's name changed to --- [not sure what it was changed to].

  Naughtiest Girl series:
    Currency changed to pence only (but not adjusted for inflation).

  Faraway Tree series:
    Names of the following characters changed:
      Dick to Rick
      Fanny to Franny
      Dame Slap to Dame Snap (and she no longer slaps anyone).

  Wishing Tree series:
    Currency changed to pence only, and in multiples of 5.

  Noddy series:
    Golliwogs changed to --- .

... and so on. That's all I can remember off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are many, many other changes to almost all the books. One example involves a car number plate that changes for no discernible reason, and there are cases of seemingly pointless small changes, such as thieves being "stopped" instead of "caught", and someone being "thrilled" rather than "excited" - and so on.
     Potential areas to examine for likely changes would include any passages referring to disabled people, people of other races, or which refer to the roles of boys and girls (or men and women). And maybe instances of words such as "Wizard!" or "queer" or "Gosh" have been changed to something else. Another area to check would be instances of corporal punishment being removed or toned down in severity.

     So does anyone know of any web site that has an extensive list of such things to look out for in determining whether an edition is authentic or not? Perhaps people might like to post examples here, and we could build up a comprehensive list.
     Thanks.

Regards, Michael.

[Anita Bensoussane]

...I'm sure there are many, many other changes to almost all the books. One example involves a car number plate that changes for no discernible reason, and there are cases of seemingly pointless small changes, such as thieves being "stopped" instead of "caught", and someone being "thrilled" rather than "excited" - and so on.

You're right that there have been many, many changes, especially from the late 1980s onwards. Even updates have been updated and it wouldn't surprise me to be told that every single Blyton book has been edited in some way. Even the short stories have been modernised (inconsistently), with alterations to characters' names, clothes, food, currency and language. To go painstakingly through just one book noting all the changes would be a time-consuming task. Ideally, you'd need a copy of the first edition and all subsequent editions to pick up all the different changes that took place at various periods. To add to the confusion, certain edits were made by one publisher but not by another. The current Dean omnibus version containing all three Faraway Tree books still has the characters' proper names - Jo, Bessie, Fanny and Dame Slap. In fact, I think that compilation may have stuck to the original text, although several chapters have been lopped off the second book in the series (The Magic Faraway Tree) for reasons of space. The current Egmont editions of the Faraway Tree series have (if I remember correctly) Joe, Beth, Frannie and Dame Snap. Various other alterations have been made too, such as changes to food. Strangely, Dean is actually a branch (to use apt tree terminology!) of Egmont!

[Michelle Rowatt]

June Johns no longer gets threatened with a spanking and at least one reference to spanking has been removed from Last Term at Malory Towers.

[MJE]

To go painstakingly through just one book noting all the changes would be a time-consuming task. Ideally, you'd need a copy of the first edition and all subsequent editions to pick up all the different changes that took place at various periods.

     Yes, it would be a formidable task - totally brain-deadening, in fact - and I wouldn't ask anyone to do that. Such a task would probably be guaranteed to destroy one's enjoyment of Enid Blyton's books for life, I would think.
     One might hope for a rather more modest goal, however: not a complete list of all changes that have ever been made, but a list of bellwether changes: just one change, or a few, for each book that, if any changes have been made at all, are certain to be included in that copy. So if you just look for that one alteration and it hasn't been altered, then almost certainly you are looking at an original text; or, if it has been made, there are likely to be other changes too.
     Do such alterations exist in many of the books - ones which indicate the overall trend for that copy?

To add to the confusion, certain edits were made by one publisher but not by another. The current Dean omnibus version containing all three Faraway Tree books still has the characters' proper names - Jo, Bessie, Fanny and Dame Slap.

     That does complicate things rather: I might have thought those names would be bellwether changes of the sort I mentioned - surely if Dame Slap and Fanny are there, no other changes have been made either, since surely that is where the censors would begin. But you also say several chapters have been removed from that edition - and I certainly count that as a change, too. (Earlier, I said Dick had been changed to Rick, but you don't mention that - was that in another book, perhaps?)

In fact, I think that compilation may have stuck to the original text, although several chapters have been lopped off the second book in the series (The Magic Faraway Tree) for reasons of space.

     That strikes me as a pretty poor reason. What would be wrong with just letting the book have a few pages more than usual (whatever you mean by usual, since I've never noticed that books are *that* uniform, anyway)?
     So I guess that means no current edition at all has the complete, unaltered text. This just backs up the rather radical claim I've made on this forum earlier that I believe Enid Blyton's original texts are in extremely serious danger of being irretrievably lost - for ever! These changes are not just harmless modifications to bring the books up to date for modern readers - they are literary vandalism on a grand scale. This would be a major scandal of the first order if it had been done on Shakespeare or Dickens.

The current Egmont editions of the Faraway Tree series have (if I remember correctly) Joe, Beth, Frannie and Dame Snap.

     Dame Snap! What a travesty. So I suppose she goes around snapping at everyone instead of slapping them, does she? I doubt that that would be nearly such a fearful thing for children to face as if she slapped them! I wouldn't mind betting that this change alone destroys 90 percent of the original character. Pathetic!

Regards, Michael.

[Aurélien]

IMHO, Michael, there's a definite need for someone to compile:

• THE POLITICALLY IN-CORRECT
  READERS' GUIDE
  TO THE WORKS OF ENID BLYTON,
  TO WHICH IS ANNEXED
  THE BLYTON QUIZ-AHOLIC'S SURVIVAL GUIDE
  TO (OFTEN UNNECCESSARY) TEXTUAL CHANGES
  & RE-CYCLED PLOT-ELEMENTS

Personally, I have neither the texts, the knowledge, the energy (or sufficient remaining lifespan) to tackle such a mammoth task.

The ever-helpful ‘Aurélien Arkadiusz’

[Anita Bensoussane]

     One might hope for a rather more modest goal, however: not a complete list of all changes that have ever been made, but a list of bellwether changes: just one change, or a few, for each book that, if any changes have been made at all, are certain to be included in that copy. So if you just look for that one alteration and it hasn't been altered, then almost certainly you are looking at an original text; or, if it has been made, there are likely to be other changes too.
     Do such alterations exist in many of the books - ones which indicate the overall trend for that copy?

There are definite things to look out for in some series - for example, if you have a Noddy book containing golliwogs it will have the original text. (Having said that, I heard that Purnell brought out some abridged versions of the original Noddy stories at one stage, as they felt that the tales were told in a long-winded fashion. I'm not sure whether the abridged books came before or after the wholesale removal of the golliwogs which took place in 1987). Golliwogs continued to feature in other Blyton books for some years, as did dogs (and a golly) named Nigger. In general, things to look out for include name changes and mentions of clothes like jeans. Or if you know there were references to gypsies, smoking, caning or slapping in the original, or anything else that might now be considered non-PC, you could look up those parts and see if they've been altered. Decimal currency is another thing to check for, though in the 1970s many of the books had the currency updated without anything else being changed (though there were a few small alterations to the Famous Five and Secret Seven books, with clothes like jeans and anoraks sometimes - not consistently - replacing shorts/skirts and overcoats).

To add to the confusion, certain edits were made by one publisher but not by another. The current Dean omnibus version containing all three Faraway Tree books still has the characters' proper names - Jo, Bessie, Fanny and Dame Slap.

...Earlier, I said Dick had been changed to Rick, but you don't mention that - was that in another book, perhaps?

No, you're right. I forgot to mention that, but it was in The Magic Faraway Tree. Again, I think that change was made by Egmont but not by Dean.

Another example of different publishers doing different things is to be found in the Adventure series. Back in the 1960s, the Armada paperbacks contained a few small alterations - Croydon airport became Heathrow, for instance. But the 1970s Piccolo paperbacks reverted to the original text, so Heathrow once again became Croydon.

In fact, I think that compilation may have stuck to the original text, although several chapters have been lopped off the second book in the series (The Magic Faraway Tree) for reasons of space.

     That strikes me as a pretty poor reason. What would be wrong with just letting the book have a few pages more than usual (whatever you mean by usual, since I've never noticed that books are *that* uniform, anyway)?

Dean have for many years produced budget-price hardbacks and have resorted to some peculiar strategies, which I assume must be something to to with aiming to fill a certain number of pages. The Dean & Son Happy Hours Story Book, for example, is a compilation of short stories but includes one of the "Children of Happy House" books within its pages (though I'm not sure that it includes all the chapters) plus the first two chapters of the full-length novel Boys' and Girls' Circus Book!

So I guess that means no current edition at all has the complete, unaltered text. This just backs up the rather radical claim I've made on this forum earlier that I believe Enid Blyton's original texts are in extremely serious danger of being irretrievably lost - for ever! These changes are not just harmless modifications to bring the books up to date for modern readers - they are literary vandalism on a grand scale.

I agree. Many changes are made for the sake of "modernisation", but they spoil the integrity of the story and all too soon become out of date themselves.

Edit: Just after finishing this post, I had a phone call from Tony. He has seen the latest Dean printing of the Faraway Tree books (2010) and they have apparently now fallen into line with Egmont and have Joe, Beth and Frannie (I'm not certain whether they also have Dame Snap and Rick and certain other textual alterations, but it seems likely. )