More Successful than J.K. Rowling: Enid Blyton's Books Do not Age

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Wednesday, November 28, 2018

She sold about 600 million pounds. It has been translated almost as often as Shakespeare, making it the best-selling children's book author of all time: Enid Blyton died 50 years ago. His books are still selling.

The BBC banned it from the program. Critics hated her as a literary light. The editors have bleached their racist nuances in the new editions. Yet, half a century after his death on November 28, 1968, Enid Blyton would likely remain the best-selling children's book author in the world, even before J.K. Rowling and their Harry Potter series.

She has sold about 600 million books and has many fans, including Germany, India and Japan. His 753 books of adventures, climbs and imagination have been translated almost as often as the works of Shakespeare. Most of their series play in the good old days, an imaginary England of which the Brexit fans still dream and which did not exist: the Empire with the tea time in the afternoon, populated by well-behaved children , governesses, overflowing police, and – of course – the bad guys.

Blyton fled into this world of reality: born August 11, 1897, she grew up in a representative family in the southern suburbs of London. Not happy childhood: "Enid and I were embracing in the arms at the top of the stairs, crying and listening to everything that was going on," his younger brother Hanly later described the atmosphere. Shortly after, the father joined his lover. Throughout his life, Blyton had a cold, distant relationship with his mother, who described his early attempts at writing and his poems as "doodles" and a "waste of time and money." ", according to a new biography of Nadia Cohen.

Drama behind a radiant facade

But the young Enid was not deterred from realizing her dream: instead of becoming a concert pianist as planned, she needed a teacher to learn more about her target group. At 25, she publishes her first collection of poetry "Child Whispers". When she met with publisher Hugh Pollock, she wrote in her diary: "I want it for me". In 1924, they married. Externally, she built a perfect family life: Bride, two girls, a house with a garden, a Bimbo cat and a Topsy dog. But in his marriage, it boiled: he was an alcoholic and suffered from depression, she was saved in business. After almost 20 years of marriage, they divorced – then a scandal – and married their respective lovers.

Blyton has published dozens of books and stories over the years. She would have typed a record 10,000 words a day. In an interview with The Telegraph, actress Helena Bonham Carter described her as a marketing professional: her young fans have dubbed her "her friends," published a magazine for her and the l & rsquo; Helped find a name at his house, "Green Hedges" find. "She was a workaholic, a successful drug addict and an extremely imperfect businesswoman," said Bonham Carter, who described Blyton in the movie "Enid". "She knew how to sell herself as a brand, up to the famous signature" – which was missing under any book cover.

Blyton loved his young readers and wrote: "I want them to grow up to become good and decent adults, and I want them to be kind, loving and generous." However, the youngest of her two daughters, Imogen Smallwood, lamented in her 1989 memoir, "A Childhood at Green Hedges:" In truth, Enid Blyton was arrogant, uncertain, demanding, very adept at difficult or difficult work, banning unpleasant things of their head, and without any maternal instinct. "

Simple reading with a lot of merit

The secret of his success? It can not be literary quality; but it offers a reading food that is easy to digest, as predictable and familiar as a warm blanket: the actions always follow the same pattern, the characters are two-dimensional, their vocabulary limited, the moral in black and white. Best-sellers such as the series "Abenteuer", "Die verwegenen Vier", "Die Schwarze Sieben" and "Fünf Freunde" offer children of eleven years an escape from everyday life: a group of children left for a journey of discovery not observed by adults. They thwart smugglers, kidnappers and shady aliens before being rewarded with cakes and lemonade.

The greatest merit of Enid Blyton has probably motivated millions of kids to read their adventure stories. And even half a century after his death, at the age of 71, his style is still so well known that parody titles such as "Five on Brexit Island" sell for more than 372,000 copies.

Source: n-tv.de