Site Updates

Wednesday, 30th November, 2011
I have added three new series of Templar Books to the Short Story section in the Cave. I have also updated the Australian Weeties Strip Books adding a contents section to each which helps source where the story came from. Over the next month I will be giving a makeover to this section improving the Contents details and also adding some better images to the Artwork.

Wednesday, 23rd November, 2011
I have added a review by Julie Heginbotham of Enid Blyton's Magazine Annual Number 2. I have also added the wraparound dustwrapper to the artwork and further items and images to the Audio Section.

Sunday, 30th October, 2011
I have added a review by Terry Gustafson of The Red-Spotted Handkerchief. I have been adding things to the new Audio Section on almost a daily basis for the last few weeks, but could still do with help on missing images and information. I have also added details of Journal 46 to the Journal Catalogue. It is currently at the printers, so it won't be sent out for another two weeks. Finally I have added a number of Mary Mouse Books to various places in the Cave of Books.

Sunday, 25th September, 2011
I have added a review by Terry Gustafson of The Story of Our Queen. I am still working on the new Audio Section in the Cave of Books, but I would welcome any suggestions of things that aren't yet mentioned, or indeed images of the many items that still don't have one.

Friday, 2nd September, 2011
Both the Audio Section in the Cave of Books and the five new Popular Series buttons on the Home Page are now fully operational.

Wednesday, 29th June, 2011
I have added a review by Julie Heginbotham of A Picnic Party with Enid Blyton. I am still working on the new section on audio cassettes for the Cave, which already contains details of 245 cassettes. I have also added the details of Journal 45 to the Journal Catalogue. It is currently at the printers and will be sent out in two or three weeks.

Wednesday, 8th June, 2011
I have added a review by Terry Gustafson of Tales After Supper. Although this updates page has been quiet for a while, for the last month I have been adding a new section on audio cassettes to the Cave. This is still under construction, so it doesn't yet feature as a section on the Cave intro page, but everything that I have added is actually visible so you may stumble on audio cassettes by accident when you put something such as 'Famous Five' into search.

Thursday, 21st April, 2011
I have been a busy bee for the last three days and I have now added 26 items to the Boxed Games and Crafts section. There is something for everyone here, enough to keep you busy for many a happy hour. One or two of the things are undated and in order to put them in I have had to guess a date. Also beware if you are rushing out to a car boot sale that some of these things kept the original date on them but were actually produced much later. This particularly applies to items from Spear's Games who continued to produce things right up to the 1980s and you often see things like Noddy's Ring Game on ebay with a 1960 date, when in all probability it dates from much later and is therefore still relatively easy to find.

Sunday, 17th April, 2011
I thought that if I updated this page more regularly perhaps more people would look at it, so I am going to make an effort to do so! I have added Noddy's Balloon Game to the Enid Blyton Board Games. Whilst working on some early Journals I came across Noddy's Toytown Post Office and for fun I searched the internet for it. I couldn't find it anywhere and I thought there should be a record of some of these things that are fifty years old somewhere and what better place than the Cave! It didn't really fit anywhere so I started a new section, Boxed Games and Crafts, and I have plenty of other things that I will add - slowly! I also added The Famous Five Short Story Collection to the Famous Five books. This is actually a completely new book as Hodders have not published it before, but I suspect that the contents are the same as Five Have a Puzzling Time which has been out of print for many years.

Tuesday, 12th April, 2011
I haven't updated this page for nearly six months, but the site has had plenty of things added in this period. As I was adding a huge number of items every day it seemed rather pointless to keep adjusting this page all the time but I would always point out any contributions from other people. I have now added a review by Terry Gustafson of Tricked on the Track, the new discovery from Birn Brothers that appeared on the back cover of the last Journal. This would seem an apt moment to thank David Chambers for the enormous amount of work that he has put into the new Periodical section. We now have over four thousand items listed here and to these I have added over a thousand illustrations. It is an ongoing project and more will be added as it comes to light.

Wednesday, 20th October, 2010
Although this updates page has been quiet for the past two months a huge amount has been going on behind the scenes. I have added a review by Terry Gustafson of The Story of My Life and also a second review of Five on a Treasure Island, this one by Matt Tompkins. A new section on TV and Film Books has been added to the Recreation Books Section and there is also a completely new section in the Cave on Blyton Periodicals. This section contains details of newspapers, magazines and comics that included a Blyton contribution in them. After ten weeks work there are now over 2500 items listed and each has a full colour-coded entry and all stories and poems have their first lines included. You will also find some illustrations as well as some early uncollected stories and poems. There is still a great deal to be added and this will take several months, but I thought that there was enough already there to make it available online. Everything is fully searchable. Finally I have also added a link to the Seven Stories' Enid Blyton Blog to the bottom of the Lashings of Links Page

Sunday, 15th August, 2010
I have added a review by Terry Gustafson of Rubbalong Tales. Although it might appear that nothing much has been added to the Cave recently, we are currently in the process of adding a new section and major work is going on behind the scenes. Keith has had to use dynamite to blast out a new cavern and I am currently 'decorating' it, but it will take several weeks to do so. More news later.

Thursday, 15th July, 2010
I have added about 50 reprint covers to the relevant sections in the Cave. A few more new Famous Five covers and a number of new editions from Award, who have issued updated covers for both the Riddle (Young Adventurers) Series and also the Family Series, which have now been issued as paperbacks.

Thursday, 10th June, 2010
I have gone back to another uncollected short story today, Nimble-Gnome and the Fairy Baby. It was published in September 1926 in Cassell's Children's Annual and illustrated by Frank Adams. I have also added the uncollected poem, Ten Little Brownie-Boys from the same annual which is illustrated by Frederick Parker. Older readers may feel that the poem reminds them of something else!

Wednesday, 9th June, 2010
I have now finished loading the remaining chapters of Let's Pretend, so the whole book is there for the one or two people who would like to read it. Phew!

Tuesday, 8th June, 2010
I have put in another four chapters of Let's Pretend, so we are now halfway through and I expect the smiles have gone off the faces of those using dial up! I have also added a review by Terry Gustafson of I'll Tell You a Story.

Monday, 7th June, 2010
No short story today as bit by bit I am putting in a whole book instead, just the first four chapters so far of Let's Pretend. It was published in October 1928 by Thomas Nelson and to the best of my knowledge was never reprinted. It is one of only two books that I know of, both written in the 1920s, that Enid Blyton wrote in the first person.

Sunday, 6th June, 2010
I have gone back to an annual for today's uncollected short story, Prince Furious and the Spanking Slippers. It was published in September 1932 in Cassell's Children's Annual 1933. I have also added the uncollected poem, Whoo-Hoo! from the same annual. The first story, The Mysterious Car can be found in Journal 37.

Saturday, 5th June, 2010
Today's uncollected short story is The House in the Tree which was published in October 1930 in Sunny Stories for Little Folks No. 103. Now that we have a torch in this dark corner of the Cave, I thought we would explore further. Enid used this same title for another completely different short story in September 1938 in Sunny Stories No. 90. This later story was used by Brockhampton in The Red-Spotted Handkerchief and Other Stories, which was published in 1948.

Friday, 4th June, 2010
The latest uncollected short story is The Disobedient Prince which was published in June 1929 in Sunny Stories for Little Folks No. 72. This is in a dark corner of the Cave where few feet have trod but I hope we will be able to open it up to more visitors