Enid Blyton (1897-1968) was an English children’s writer and remains one of the best-selling authors ever to pick up a pen, with more than 600 million copies sold and translations into ninety languages. Her output was staggering: at her peak she produced as many as fifty books a year, writing unplanned and at speed – so fast that rumours circulated of an army of ghost writers, a charge she always denied. From Child Whispers, a slim poetry collection published in 1922, she built a literary empire spanning Noddy, the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, Malory Towers, St Clare’s and the Faraway Tree stories.
Honesty requires the other half of the story. From the 1950s onwards her work drew serious criticism – for unchallenging prose, and later for attitudes judged elitist, sexist, racist and xenophobic. Some libraries and schools banned her books, and for two decades the BBC declined to broadcast her stories on grounds of literary merit. Yet she saw herself as a moral writer, organising her young readers through clubs to raise money for animal and children’s charities, and updated editions of her books have kept selling steadily since her death in 1968. Her life eventually became drama itself, in a BBC film with Helena Bonham Carter in the title role.
2 hours and 40 minutes
14 hours and 21 minutes
