The Enid Blyton Society

Hi there, not sure if people remember me but to anyone who does, hello *waves*.

I am doing a reread of the FFO (aD) atm and as I don't have all of the books and many of the ones I do have are past their best I was thinking of treating myself to a new box set. The cheapest one that I can find though is a very 'modern' looking edition with very modern covers. I can just about live with the covers and I could probably live with shillings being changed into pounds etc (though I'd rather they weren't). Does anyone know, though, how much this particular recent edition has been changed? I really, really don't want to buy them just find Fatty calling the others on his new iphone, etc.

Welcome Yak. *waves back*
I don't think the FFO books have been as enthusiastically altered as some others, but I'm not sure, as I have the old hardback copies. I expect others on here may be able to help you more.

Welcome back Yak!
Have sent you a pm.

I'd rather pay a bit more for a decent set than get a cheap set that I couldn't read cos it would annoy me. But if the modern paperback set is not that bad I'll buy that

Hi Yak! good to see you here again!

As far as I know, the Find Outer books weren't altered very much for many years. I have some 'Dean' versions - still fairly old (1990) and these don't appear to have been altered at all - or even re-set - as the font etc is identical to the original hardbacks. The illustrations for most of them are by original artists...well, the Treyer Evans ones are.



I also have some paperback versions from the 1990's - also illustrated in this instance (tally ho) by Treyer Evans -



Unfortunately, I don't have any of the more modern editions though. I've a feeling some alterations have occurred since the 2000's.

Good to see you, Yak!

There have been a few changes - e.g. at least one scene involving Fatty's bruises has been removed from Burnt Cottage, the planes in the same book are called jets rather than Tempests, Mr. Tupping's nastiness to Bets has been toned down in Disappearing Cat, Fatty has his neck squeezed instead of his ears boxed in Secret Room, the Winston Churchill references in Missing Necklace have been abbreviated, Ern no longer gets caned in Hidden House, a comment about smoking has been edited in Pantomime Cat, Fatty's poem in Tally-Ho Cottage no longer refers to Poppet the poodle receiving a whipping...

I'm not sure when these alterations were made but I expect it was in the 1990s or early 2000s.

Hallo - another older forum member who's not been around here nearly so much. Good to see you back again, Yak - and of course I remember who you are.

     I just felt impelled to note my surprise that these books apparently haven't been changed as "enthusiastically" as some others, according to comments above, because I'd have thought that, if anything, these books would be deemed more in need of "updating" (i.e., bowdlerizing, censoring) more than most other Blyton books. I mean, the very name "Fatty" would surely be considered deeply insulting and offensive - I have heard this very nickname cited in news stories as an example of the kind of fat-vilifying that is not acceptable now. And indeed I think it is unacceptable if done as vilification; yet, when I read the books as a boy (and still when I reread them), I somehow manage to accept that "Fatty" is just the boy's nickname, and it's not meant as vilification at all, and I honestly don't squirm when I read the books and encounter the name. It's just what he is called.
     There's more, too, that would surely need alteration: how about the children's extreme disrespect for Mr. Goon? Maybe he deserved it, but regardless of that, I'd have thought the modern guardians of children's literature would rule that this sort of example simply should not be set for child readers. And Mr. Goon's extreme incompetence might surely be seen as a scandalous depiction of lawful authority (or something like that) - almost as if, quite apart from the children's cheek towards him, Blyton herself is mocking police.
     Indeed, there was a time maybe 20 years ago when I noticed that the books seemed to have disappeared from the bookshelves, at a time when political correctness certainly existed, but was perhaps a little less exacting than today, and I thought to myself, "Well, that's a shame - but I can see why they've gone - probably completely out of print, and they'll never see the light of day ever again." There seemed, even then, so much that was politically incorrect about them that I didn't see how they could possibly be "revised" or "updated" to today's P.C. standards without utterly destroying their basic character.
     So that's why I'm a bit surprised to read above that they have been altered less than some other books. And I was also quite surprised to see that Fatty's bruises, of all things, had to be toned down. Whaaat?! How is that offensive to the delicate sensibilities of modern readers? I really don't get that.
     And I see that some of the usual P.C. suspects one would expect have been toned down - quite needlessly, to my mind: Fatty's neck getting squeezed instead of his ears boxed (not sure I see how that's any better, myself - not that it has to be, because those men were *nasty*, and one shouldn't be surprised if they are depicted as doing nasty things); Ern being caned (similar); Tupping's nastiness to Bets toned down - for goodness' sake, he *was* nasty, and you lose a lot of the point of the character if you water that down. Why not have robbers turning round and apologizing to their victims before making their getaway? And, for goodness' sake, is even any passing mention of smoking taboo now? How ridiculous! I've always read editions which are from the 1960s or earlier, so have probably been pretty close to the original text, and there is no way any of the books could reasonably be taken as advocating smoking.
     I suppose anyone who's read previous posts of mine will already be aware that I don't approve of these changes, so perhaps I don't need to belabour the point now.

Regards, Michael.

     Oh, Yak - another thing. If you are considering buying a new box set, I suspect you may be disappointed if you grew up reading older copies. I have never seen a presentation style or artwork on any new Blyton editions that I think come even close to capturing the magic of Blyton's stories. Of course some may differ on that, and I suppose it's a matter of what you grew up with - early memories are easily the most powerful ones, I often think. I find some of the new covers on Blyton books to be totally, utterly, completely, unremittingly awful - perhaps those exaggerated cartoon-style ones are at the very bottom of the pits. (Had to get those for the new Malory Towers books, as I was not aware of any other edition - but I just have to ignore the dreadful covers.)
     I would consider looking for older copies myself, although I'm not sure how expensive that could get. Another plus is that you'd be more likely to get the original text. The alterations discussed above would be enough to be thoroughly off-putting for me.

Regards, Michael.

Anita Bensoussane wrote:Good to see you, Yak!

There have been a few changes - e.g. at least one scene involving Fatty's bruises has been removed from Burnt Cottage, the planes in the same book are called jets rather than Tempests, Mr. Tupping's nastiness to Bets has been toned down in Disappearing Cat, Fatty has his neck squeezed instead of his ears boxed in Secret Room, the Winston Churchill references in Missing Necklace have been abbreviated, Ern no longer gets caned in Hidden House, a comment about smoking has been edited in Pantomime Cat, Fatty's poem in Tally-Ho Cottage no longer refers to Poppet the poodle receiving a whipping...

I'm not sure when these alterations were made but I expect it was in the 1990s or early 2000s.

Not sure, but the things you mention are still in the Dean edition of 1991, which I have. The Dean edition has the same number of pages as the original (174) and is laid out word for word in the same way, suggesting no alterations have been made.

Each page starts and ends with the same words as the original edition, and the text seems to be even in the same typeface as the original editions. Even the illustrations are on the same numbered pages. I look on these as 'modern' but I do acknowledge that 1991 isn't all that 'modern' in reality!

I know what you mean about the 'new editions' Rob.Below is the edition my mum bought me,which I still consider to be a 'newer version'!!!


1969 Dragon, illustrations by Treyer Evans, cover by Mary Gernat

Plus, nice to have Michael posting here again.

pete9012S wrote:Below is the edition my mum bought me,which I still consider to be a 'newer version'!!!


1969 Dragon, illustrations by Treyer Evans, cover by Mary Gernat

     I tend to regard 1970 (approximately) as the cut-off point between old and new. That may be partly because that is about the time I ran out of Blyton books (those types that interested me - not saying *all* Blyton books), and so stopped buying them after that (before rebuilding my collection quite a few years later) - but it's also reinforced because I have the impression that the trend for "revising" or "updating" the texts began around that time. To me, that is an absolute chasm between "old" (and authentic) editions and "new" (inauthentic) editions.
     Also - and this may possibly be due to suggestibility reinforced by the preceding matters - I even fancy that elements like the cover illustrations changed after that, and became less "Blytonian" to me, somehow. I even noticed that it was some time after that that some of the paperbacks began using a new style of Enid Blyton's signature on the front, sort of distorting it and squeezing it somehow so that it didn't look right. Not sure when that started, but I seem to think it was some time in the 1970s - and that, too, added to a feeling of being less Blytonian - they couldn't even get her signature right any more.
     Quite possibly, though, these impressions are purely subjective, and shared by no-one else. However, for what it's worth, the cover shown here makes it into the "old" category for me, and I believe it is the exact cover on the copy I had round about that time.

pete9012S wrote:Plus, nice to have Michael posting here again.

     Thank you for the kind thought, Pete.
     I know I've not been around nearly so much as I used to. Please be assured (anyone who cares) that it is not because I have any problems with anyone, or with the forum in general - it's purely an internal thing. To be honest, I think I am starting to run out of new things to say, although sometimes seeing the right post by someone else can suddenly prompt thoughts, often in some detail, which seem to come quite spontaneously. I trust that, but am wary of posting anything if I feel I am forcing it too much. I've never quite been able to take to the really brief, snappy style of posting that is more like being part of a fast-moving conversation (and which would probably have seen my post count go much higher - if I cared about that, which I don't).
     Also, I think I spend less time on forums generally now than I used to, on any topic.

Regards, Michael.

     Hmmm... struck by a sudden doubt, I checked the Cave and looked at cover illustrations for this book - and I'm not not entirely sure the cover shown is the one I had, after all - possibly it was the Armada cover shown there, from 1965. I do seem to recall that most of my early books in that series were Dragon books, but most, if not all, the later ones were Armada ones. The Dragon editions came out gradually, so not all titles were yet available in that edition at the time I was collecting them.
     And I didn't buy the series in order either. "Secret Room" was first, in 1967, then "Missing Necklace". Not sure I remember the order after that, but I probably completed the series in 1968 or 1969. I think "Strange Messages" and "Banshee Towers came early in my collecting of these books - almost certainly still in 1967. I think "Pantomime Cat" was the last one I bought.
     My original copies in Dragon were from "Burnt Cottage" to "Hidden House", except for "Spiteful Letters", which I got in Armada also, I think, in 1967 - for some reason a Dragon edition came out for that later, out of sequence. After the first 6 books (in numerical order within the seris), I got the rest in Armada, because Dragon issues weren't keeping up with me. But because I bought them out of order, some of my Dragon copies could have been bought later than some Armada copies.
     So that does raise the thought that maybe I got the Armada edition of "Tally-Ho Cottage", but for some reason the Dragon cover seemed familiar. In any case, I *could* have got that one at the time, even if I didn't, and so that helps make it seem like an "old" edition for me.
     Of all the covers shown in the Cave, those two editions are easily the ones I like best.

Regards, Michael.

LOL I doubt I'd have noticed the name of the planes being changed . I can probably live with the other changes but I hope that they haven't ADDED anything to try and make it seem like it's all taking place in the modern era .. the period setting was the thing I always liked most as a child; was fascinated to see how life was in the forties*

*I did not entirely realise, till I was a lot older, that not everyone had maids and personal cooks and things back then though

Yak wrote:LOL I doubt I'd have noticed the name of the planes being changed .

Then again, I always think that was a 'bad change' because 'tempests' is a particular kind of plane, which people would remember flying over - and that is of course integral to the plot - whereas 'jets' could be pretty much any type of plane (in my opinion!).

As far as I know, no far-reaching changes have been made. The plots, atmosphere and characters should be much the same in any version.

pete9012S wrote:Below is the edition my mum bought me,which I still consider to be a 'newer version'!!!


1969 Dragon, illustrations by Treyer Evans, cover by Mary Gernat

That's the edition I have too. I bought it as a child and I love the cover. It evokes happy memories for me.

MJE wrote:...for goodness' sake, is even any passing mention of smoking taboo now? How ridiculous! I've always read editions which are from the 1960s or earlier, so have probably been pretty close to the original text, and there is no way any of the books could reasonably be taken as advocating smoking.

In The Mystery of the Pantomime Cat Fatty originally said, "I'm not smoking till I'm twenty-one" but now he says, "I'm not going to be a smoker at all."

Nice to see you posting again, Michael (MJE)!