The Enid Blyton Society

It's none of the Find Outers books mentioned so far.It's not one which would have lept out to me for its superior humour!
Maybe I will be able re-evaluate that opinion on a re-read to see if I can agree with our esteemed reviewer!

Interestingly there are twenty one references to laughing/laughter in the book the reviewer thinks is the funniest ever...

The popular choice (which I would agree with ) The Strange Bundle has thirty two references.

Tally-Ho Cottage has twenty six..

Mmmm perhaps our esteemed reviewer is not as well read on his Blyton's...unless he sees humour we don't.

Gosh, this does sound intriguing, I'll take a guess at Secret Room, not because I find it humourous, but I'm just guessing now.

The Secret Room has just thirteen references to laughter - perhaps the books got funnier as they went on...

Yep me too, the French Boy moments are quite funny, and, well, I guess it has humor but not stand out humor, and as the stand out humorous ones don't seem to be correct, oh well.
Staying with that line of thought, Hidden House, where we are introduced to good old Ern, and Disappearing Cat, with Tupping, (IMHO more annoying than funny but this reviewer seems to have some weird notions!) might be not so strong contenders too.

What about Holly Lane, Pete. I'll give that a guess.

Surely, it must be Invisible Thief. There's at least, a hidden and subtle humour in that book.

Darrell71 wrote: Staying with that line of thought, Hidden House, where we are introduced to good old Ern,.

At last the mystery has been expertly solved!
Now for the mystery of how an avid Blyton reader concludes this to be the funniest Enid Blyton book ever,although obviously preference and sense of humour is highly personal and can differ greatly..

I would however disagree that this book is the only one in which Enid Blyton displays a sense of humour.
Parts of Bundle & Tally-Ho have me in fits of laughter no matter how many times I read them...

Well done, Sunskriti!

Can anyone back our esteemed reviewer up and give any examples of the amazing humour to be enjoyed within the pages of Hidden House??

Hidden House is one of my least favourite Find Outer books - although I do agree that Ern adds greatly to the humour in the book.

One of my favourite scenes of humour occurs in Holly Lane - when the children follow the wrong man thinking its Fatty in disguise.

Humour plays a big part in the Mystery books for me.
In Hidden House, the scene where Mr Goon overhears Ern reciting portry in the middle of the night is funny. However there are scenes that are anything but funny as well.

Whoever wrote that Amazon review is a bit...well...thick, lol. They obviously haven't read many EB books - and anyway, humour is very subjective - many people find Monty Python hilarious - I don't. I hate so-called comedians like Russel Brand - does that make them bad? I hate 'alternative humour'. I hate slapstick. Does that mean all slapstick is awful?

Personally I find many of Enid's books funny - Amelia Jane, Mr Twiddle, Mr Meddle, Binkle and Flip, aspects of The Find Outers, The Rilloby Fair mystery (I consider Snubby to be one of Enid's greatest comic characters) and also the school series are often very funny too! My idea of humour is often brittle and sarcastic...and there isn't a lot of that in 'The Mystery of the Hidden House.'

I wonder if it is Ern's attempts at writing "portry" that tickled this reviewer's sense of humour? They certainly have a comic element to them, but I wouldn't call that the most humorous of her books by a long way! Not that I can think of an order of merit anyway.

I would have gone for Strange Bundle as my first guess too; it's definitely high in the humour stakes. Hopefully those nine-year-olds enjoyed Hidden House so much that they'll want to read other Enid Blytons!

It does seem very strange that an 'avid reader' of Enid Blyton would only remember that one book as really funny, but as has been said, humour is a subjective thing and memory can play tricks on us too.

Whilst Strange Bundle contains sustained humour, I think there's humour in every single book that I can think of - except perhaps Six Bad Boys and the Put-em-Rights (can never remember if 'The' is part of the title!)

I too have laughed aloud at The Three Golliwogs which I read for the first time as an adult, the Mr. Twiddle and Mr. Meddle books all contain humour as an essential part of the stories, and all the adventure/mystery books are funny in parts.

One of my favourite examples of passing humour is Sid's "I'm partial to chocolate mould" in Five Fall Into Adventure. Then there's Claudine's revenge on Angela's mother in the St. Clare's series... Snubby's antics, particularly in Rilloby and Rub-a-dub... Philip playing a trick on the governess at the beginning of Sea of Adventure oh, the list is endless!

Rob, I agree about Rilloby - I think it contains some of Blyton's best humour and Snubby is one of my favourite characters too. He is so funny and ridiculous with Uncle Robert. Also, Uncle Robert being told off by the lady opposite because her baby was crying are great examples of how Enid wove humour throughout her stories!

Sorry Pete, I'm reading Secret Room at the moment and it's the first FFO I've read for absolutely ages so can't think of any examples in Hidden House

Spitfire wrote:Rob, I agree about Rilloby - I think it contains some of Blyton's best humour and Snubby is one of my favourite characters too. He is so funny and ridiculous with Uncle Robert. Also, Uncle Robert being told off by the lady opposite because her baby was crying are great examples of how Enid wove humour throughout her stories!

I'm currently re-reading Rilloby Fair and I'd forgotten the scene with Uncle Robert being told off by the woman with the baby - a great example of Enid's humour!