Enid Blyton started re-telling the Brer Rabbit tales early in her writing career, at a time when she was regularly re-telling all sorts of folk-tales, fairy-tales, myths, legends and fables. They were published in magazines like Sunny Stories for Little Folks, Sunny Stories and The Teachers World and I can only assume her readers loved Brer Rabbit and kept on asking for more stories about him, prompting Enid to invent her own tales as well as re-telling the originals.Courtenay wrote:Out of interest, does anyone know when and how Enid came to start writing Brer Rabbit stories? Obviously she was familiar with Joel Chandler Harris's originals, but what got her started writing her own versions? It would be tempting to think maybe she was looking for something to appeal to an American audience, but she's never really been popular in America. Or was she just wanting to offer her British and Commonwealth readers something a bit "different"?
I read somewhere — in the Cave, I think — that Enid in fact wrote more stories about Brer Rabbit than about any other character, which intrigues me further. He must really have sparked her imagination, especially as I can't think of any other cases where she takes an existing character from folklore (even English folklore, let alone African-American) and writes story after story about him. She certainly did retell stories of Robin Hood and King Arthur and other legendary characters, but nowhere near as prolifically as she did with Brer Rabbit!
Obviously, a scamp of a character like Brer Rabbit would have appealed to Enid Blyton enormously as she herself was mischievous and loved practical jokes as a schoolgirl. Her own bunnies Binkle and Flip (particularly Binkle, who is naughtier than Flip) hark back to Brer Rabbit but the stories have an English setting.