Fun Facts Friday: Enid Blyton

Enid Blyton (11 August, 1897 – 28 November, 1968) was an English author who wrote mainly for children in the 1930s.

Books by Enid Blyton*

1)       Ms. Blyton’s father moved away when she was a child, she had a bad relationship with both her parents until their death.

2)      She graduated attended St Christopher’s School in Beckenham in 1915 as “head girl”, meaning that she was responsible for representing the school at public events and making speeches.

3)      The author’s mother considered her efforts at writing to be a “waste of time and money”.

4)      She did not attend the funerals of her parents.

5)      According to many accounts, Ms. Blyton was not a very pleasant person. Her daughter, Imogen, said her mother was “arrogant, insecure and pretentious”.

6)      Trained as a teacher, she wrote in her spare time. Ms. Blyton’s first published book was Child Whispers (1922), while she was still teaching.

7)      At one time, the author wrote 50 books a year, in addition to contributing to newspaper and magazines.

8)      Her husband, Major Hugh Alexander Pollock, was the editor at the publishing house George Newnes which published some, but not all, of Enid Blyton’s books.

9)      Enid Blyton wrote her books on a typewriter which was on her lap.

10)   Ms. Blyton’s books have been on the best seller lists since they were published several decades (almost a century at time this was written), and were translated to around 90 languages and sold more than 600 million copies.

Books by Enid Blyton*

Zohar — Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account