What was the first Blyton book you read?

[Katharine]

I have absolutely no idea what my first Enid Blyton book was, I seem to have had them on my bookshelf for as long as I can remember. Enid Blyton was just a normal part of my childhood. Possibly it would have been a Noddy book, as I have several of those, and I can remember buying another one when I was on holiday aged about 8. The first books I can probably remember receiving would be Dean versions of The Faraway Tree and Children of Cherry Tree Farm, before that I was allowed to borrow my aunt's 1950s versions if I was extremely careful. I also have a number of other Dean books such as The Adventures of Pip, Mr. PinkWhistle etc. which I seem to have had forever.

Books (usually Enid Blyton) for Christmas and birthdays were just part of life, and over the years I acquired all the St. Clare's and Malory Towers books, several FF and SS, plus the Adventure series. Odd books such as House at the Corner, and the Rockingdown Mystery also appeared. On top of all those, I would buy whatever I could afford at school fetes etc, mostly hardbacked FF (minus D/W).

I never thought to write down what I got or when, but a few still have the original price sticker on them, Willow Tree Farm has a Blue Peter sticker on it, so presumably I bought that from a school fund raiser for the princely sum of 10p.

I do remember going into John Menzies (now long gone) to buy the Treasury of Verse, for about £5 - a lot of weeks pocket money carefully saved up especially.

As an adult I've discovered books such as the Holiday Series, various religious and nature books that I had no idea existed when I was a child. I do try and keep a record of when/where/how much, but it's a bit hit and miss. A lot of the books will have the price pencilled in the front, and the few I've bought from E-Bay I also have accurate records of, but I wish I'd been a bit more precise in my record keeping.

[Julie2owlsdene]

The Treasure Hunters was the first book I read, about 1962, and this was my sister's book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and she said that The Boy Next Door would be one I'd like too. So I found this book in the library and read that. The next book was Billycock Hill, which a friend introduced me too. It was then that I started to read as many Blyton books as I could find in the library, as I couldn't really afford to buy any. As I got a bit older and had pocket money I started to save this money and bought a Blyton book whenever I could and so that was the start of my hard backed collection of Famous Fives in the 60's that cost 7/6pence.

I too am surprised that you started your collection in 1987, Tony. Yet some 25 years later, you have more books in the Cave that I have seen. It's a joy to look at them all, and the time I spent looking at them all in the Cave was pure magic.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I remember I read a book featuring a fairy called Pip (I think) - would it be "The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies" or was that sometihng different? Anyway, I was too young to notice that Pip was a fairy - I thought he was just a boy, and never quite spotted the anomalies like swinging on a buttercup. (I started reading very young, I wouldn't be more than 4.)

You may be thinking of The Adventures of Pip, Dsr. I too was reading Enid Blyton at the age of four, having learnt to read with Ladybird books. In the summer of 1974, some relatives came to stay and gave me a present of Mr. Pink-Whistle's Party (Dean & Son edition, with a cheery orange cover). I devoured it at a gulp, together with the Mary Mouse book they bought for my three-year-old sister, and was left hungry for more. Shortly afterwards I acquired and read more Enid Blyton books, some of my earliest being a selection of volumes from the Purnell Sunshine Library and more Dean & Son titles including Chimney Corner Stories, Tales of Long Ago, The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies, The Enid Blyton Book of Brownies, The Adventures of Pip, Circus Days Again, More Adventures on Willow Farm, The Brer Rabbit Book and The Naughtiest Girl in the School. I received most of them as presents and didn't really start buying books for myself until I was about seven or eight, when I began collecting the Famous Five and Secret Seven series.

[Tony Summerfield]

Coming back to the beginning here and replying to Kate, I'm afraid I grew up at the wrong time and as children we didn't have that many books at all, but we did treasure the few that we had. I don't ever remember seeing a book in a dustwrapper and I think that they were all given to us by friends who had finished reading them. I have written before that the only Enid Blyton books I ever read as a child were the few Adventure books that we had - I had never even heard of the Famous Five! I have also said elsewhere that I gave all my children's books to a school library and the librarian put them all into a local jumble sale!

I should have added, Pete, that I also recorded the price of everything I bought and children's books generally at that time were as 'cheap as chips'! In just over a year I had almost all the Famous Five books as 1st editions in dustwrappers and none of them had cost me more than £5, most a lot less. I was of course also buying books by several other children's authors as well. There was of course no internet then, so I had to scour bookshops all over the country and I also used the back page adverts in Book & Magazine Collector.

I first got onto the internet in 1999 and managed to pick up a lot of books on a website in its infancy, so that there were very few buyers on it - ebay! At the time the Yahoo auction site was probably more successful, but the infant grew and swallowed everything else in its path. Prices rose and I more or less stopped buying.

[Fiona1986]

Gosh, I never thought to record date/price of books when I started collecting properly! Kinda wish I had though.

I think I've probably still got hundreds of PayPal receipts in my emails so I'm sure I could start some sort of list! My very first collecting buys (the FF) won't be there I don't think as they were bought off my boyfriend's debit card - I didn't yet have one myself.

As for my very first EB I'm not totally sure. I suspect it may have been one of the Anelia Janes read to me by my parents (it would have belonged to my mum first) and then I think I started on the FF by myself - not sure if I started with Treasure Island or not but I think it was a red Hodder anyway.

After that I read Malory Towers (repeatedly borrowing the titles I didn't have from the library) and the Adventure Series, the Secret Series, Hollow Tree House, a couple of FFOs, one or two of the Galliano's Circuses... And probably a few others. I had one or two St Clare's, two or three of the Barneys, and a couple of Secret Sevens but I don't think I really read any of those until much later.

[Eddie Muir]

I posted the following on the "First Enid Blyton books you read" thread on 10th April 2009:

The first Enid Blyton book I remember reading was Chuff the Chimney Sweep and other stories, first published by Pitkin in 1949. My memory of this book dates back to 1951 when I was about seven years old and lived in my home town, Stourport-on-Severn and it was given to me as either a birthday or Christmas present. I still have a tatty, but precious copy of this book - not my original book, but one that I have acquired in more recent times. Other of my Enid Blyton firsts include Five On A Treasure Island, The Mystery of the Vanished Prince and The Family at Red-Roofs.

I'm repeating my post as it is relevant to this new thread.

[Anita Bensoussane]

That's funny. I did a search earlier in the day on "first", selecting "topic titles only", and that thread didn't come up. I had a feeling there was a thread about first books somewhere, and that it would probably have had "first" in the title, but it didn't show. I just did the same search again and it still doesn't come up!

I'll do a search on "chuff" to find your post Eddie, and then consider merging the two threads.

Edit: "Starting Point" now merged with "What was the first Blyton book you read?"

[Nick]

My first memories are being given copies of both FF &SS for Christmas - both had the TV tie-in/style covers (which may explain my passion for those covers now) so I suspect that was 79/80 so I was about 6 or 7 and I have a strong suspicion that Five On Kirrin Island Again was the first one I read. I'm sure I read the odd FF & SS book now again until about 84 and then my home life became pretty destructive and, desperate for some escapism, I threw myself into both series. I read them religiously up until I was about 13/14 then forgot about them until a few years back.

I have no doubt that the warm, nostalgic sense of satisfaction I get out of a re-read now is directly linked to the "safe escapism" the stories gave me as a child.

[pete9012S]

I have no doubt that the warm, nostalgic sense of satisfaction I get out of a re-read now is directly linked to the "safe escapism" the stories gave me as a child.

A very good point Nick.One that I totally agree with.

Regards

Pete

[Fiona1986]

Just slimmer back through the whole thread to see if my stories matched, but it seems I'd not posted my story in the older thread which is surprising for me!

I have been inspired for a new blog post though!

[Aurora]

The first book I've read by Blyton was probably the naughtiest girl. When my mom bought the book at first i was really furious because i had expected something else. but after a few days i saw the book in the shelf, i was quite determined to find out was the book really as good as my mom says so i started reading it. but i have never expected it to be very good and interesting. All this was because my mom bought it and i still thank her for introducing me to this magical place!!!

[Darrell71]

Yes the Naughtiest Girl books are very nice tho I didn't start of with them unfortunately. :l

[Poppy]

I remember getting the whole series of naughtiest girl books for Christmas one year off my uncle. They are a fantastic and really entertaining though not my favourite school series.

[Francis]

I remember 'Noddy Goes to the Seaside' being read to me as a very young boy -
I am not sure if that counts. It was certainly my first exposure to the magic of
Enid.

[honesty]

Hmmmm...
Ahh yes, The Faraway Tree. My mother read this book to me each night when I was younger and she would only read a chapter each night so I had to wait until the next night until I could find out what would happen!