Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Moonraker »

Tony Summerfield wrote:We don't actually do all that well from Google, Julie. People normally go from there to EnidBlyton.net and most assume that is the official Blyton site and go no further.
I think that proves how clever our beloved webmaster is at promoting his own site and knowing which keywords attract the Google munchkins! I often notice that many questions on eb.net's Message Board could easily be answered by dipping a toe into the Cave. I also notice how often the site's administrators, Fatty and Bets, point people in our direction. For that, we should be grateful. :D
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Tony Summerfield »

We are grateful for any crumbs that come in our direction! :lol:
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Viv of Ginger Pop »

The Bournemouth Echo has done me a nice article :D

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/f ... iscovered/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by 70s-child »

Lucky Star wrote:Much better indeed. I hate The Guardian's readership. They really are a lot of toffee nosed leftie PC fools. :evil:
I have a confession - I too read the Guardian - though only occassionally. :oops: :lol: It often has articles that deal with issues in my line of work. There is also the fact that I am not familiar with too many British newspapers, and Guardian is one of the best known out here! I promise you though, I am not a wing-nut (far from it!), and I agree that that their reaction to Enid Blyton is completely over-the-top. But what a nice description, Lucky Star. I couldn't stop laughing when I read it. :lol:
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by lizarfau »

Australian writer Josephine Pennicott, an Enid fan, talks about the new find on her blog: http://josephinetalepeddler.wordpress.c ... s-caravan/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Thanks for the links, Viv and Lizarfau. Here's another Guardian article (see link below). The readers' comments for this one are gentler and more thoughtful on the whole (though a couple are littered with swear words):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... f-comments" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Timmylover »

The writers of the more recent Guardian comments do appear to be a more thoughtful and sympathetic bunch of people. I was heartened that many of them spoke with some distaste about the updated texts, and the Find-Outers even got several mentions by people with fond memories of them. The retired librarian's comments were interesting too. Altogether a much pleasanter read than yesterday's.
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Tony Summerfield »

There has been a great deal written about this new discovery in the past week, but few people seem to realise that this manuscript actually came to light four months ago in October last year. For those that haven't seen it I thought I would show you what Hannah Green at Seven Stories put in her Blog at the time. This was on October 29th after we had exchanged a few emails:-

"I have been in touch with Tony Summerfield of the Enid Blyton Society today regarding a mystery typescript entitled Mr Tumpy’s Caravan. The typescript was purchased as part of a lot of short stories, and is a complete story running to some 177 pages. We initially wondered if it was unpublished, as we were only aware of the Mr Tumpy strip books and this typescript did not resemble any of them.

However, Tony pointed out that Enid also published a picture story book called Mr Tumpy and His Caravan. Surely, what we had must be the typescript for that? This seemed a reasonable conjecture, given the similarity in title, and we set about sourcing a copy of the book in order to confirm this. But Tony was still keen to see the typescript, so this morning I sent him scans of the contents page and the first page of chapter one.

To my surprise, and great delight, he replied very swiftly to say that our reasonable conjecture was, in fact, wrong. We do indeed appear to have a typescript for a complete, unpublished Mr Tumpy story book! This is an incredibly exciting discovery which I couldn’t possibly keep to myself. In the coming weeks we will hopefully be able to share more details about this unpublished story – I still haven’t had a chance to read more than the first few pages! But I am very much looking forward to the task, and to sharing any further exciting discoveries."

Four months later this has now become "news" and all sorts of people are jumping on the bandwagon to grab publicity for themselves. Amongst the many enquiries I have had, two of the stranger ones are the BBC Gardener's World programme and the Camping and Caravanning Club Magazine! :)

Numerous people have come forward to say that they had this book as a child, but so far they have all been referring to Mr Tumpy and His Caravan which was published in September 1949, using material that had been published as a daily picture strip in the Evening Standard.

There has been a great deal of speculation about the date of this book and for various reasons after discussion with both Anita and David Chambers I have now come down to an opinion that it was written in the late 1920s. Several of the ideas used in the book bear a strong resemblance to both The Book of Brownies written in 1926 and even more so to stories that appeared in Sunny Stories for Little Folks in 1928. These ideas would have been fresh in her mind at the time and the general style of what I have seen of the manuscript would seem to point to this period. It certainly wasn't written in the late 30s as I have seen suggested elsewhere, if this had been the case it would not have remained unpublished.
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Julie2owlsdene »

Thanks for all that information, Tony. We'll all now have to wait and see how this unpublished manuscript will progress. What an amazing find though, an early work of Enid's. :D

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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Lucky Star »

Thanks for all that info Tony. I must admit that I only heard of this myself this week. Maybe I shoould bookmark that blog, I have obviously missed out. Its also great that you have been able to arrive at a conclusion for the date of writing. 1928, thats old. To think it has lain unpublished and unseen for over 80 years; I do hope it gets its publication now.

I was probably making a rather sweeping generalisation about Guardian readers earlier. :lol: I should add that I have many friends who read it as well and are very nice people. So apologies to any nice Guardian readers out there.
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Lucky Star wrote:Thanks for all that info Tony. I must admit that I only heard of this myself this week. Maybe I should bookmark that blog, I have obviously missed out.
The Seven Stories Blog address is listed under Lashings of Links (scroll down to the bottom of the list).

Yes, the Mr. Tumpy book is an exciting find and does appear to be an early work. It would be marvellous to see it published one of these days, preferably with vintage-style illustrations and a colourful dustwrapper.
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Viking Star »

Anita Bensoussane wrote:Thanks for the links, Viv and Lizarfau. Here's another Guardian article (see link below). The readers' comments for this one are gentler and more thoughtful on the whole (though a couple are littered with swear words):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... f-comments" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks Anita. I've no idea how many comments the Guardian normally gets on its forums, but I'm quite struck by the number who have posted in response to the article.
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Fiona1986 »

There was actually a letter from a Dundee lady in today's Daily Express about this book.

She wrote:
"Leave Blyton magic free from family dramas.
With the news that another Enid Blyton story has been found, I find it very sad that all the negative aspects of this author's life are trotted out again.
I remember loving Blyton's books as a child and, although certain attitudes are certainly unfashionable now, these seem to pass children by.
The fact that her home life was less than ideal doesn't detract from her magical powers as a writer.
No one is perfect and to rehash family vendettas constantly and malign someone who is dead and can no longer defend themselves seems very mean."

I couldn't agree more.
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by pete9012S »

I read the Telegraph and I feel they seem to be fair minded when they discuss all things 'Enid' :D
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Re: Lost Enid Blyton book 'Mr Tumpy's Caravan' found

Post by Red Tower »

Viking Star wrote:
Anita Bensoussane wrote:Thanks for the links, Viv and Lizarfau. Here's another Guardian article (see link below). The readers' comments for this one are gentler and more thoughtful on the whole (though a couple are littered with swear words):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... f-comments" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks Anita. I've no idea how many comments the Guardian normally gets on its forums, but I'm quite struck by the number who have posted in response to the article.
One of the most commented ones that I can remember is this CIF by Mike Read:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ckingboris" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Read was derided in pretty much in every one of the 1122 comments. Rightly so, imo, if you read his article.
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