Critical and Academic Texts

Barker, Martin (1984) A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign (London: Pluto)

Blishen, Edward (1974) ‘Life at Elfin Cottage: Enid Blyton as a case of arrested imagination’, Times Educational Supplement 27 September

Cadogan, Mary and Craig, Patricia (1976) ‘You’re a Brick, Angela!’ A New Look at Girls’ Fiction from 1839 to 1975 (London: Gollancz)

Chambers, Aidan (1973) Introducing Books to Children (London: Heinemann Educational)

Coetzee, Liesel (2011) ‘Empowering girls? The portrayal of Anne and George in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series’, English Academy Review, 28:1, 85-98

Corner, John and Harvey, Sylvia (eds.) (1991) Enterprise and Heritage: Crosscurrents of National Culture (London: Routledge)

Dixon, Bob (1977) Catching Them Young 1: Sex, Race and Class in Children’s Fiction (London: Pluto Press)

Dixon, Bob (1977) Catching Them Young 2: Political Ideas in Children’s Fiction (London: Pluto Press)

Druce, Robert (1992) This Day Our Daily Fictions: An Enquiry into the Multi-Million Bestseller Status of Enid Blyton and Ian Fleming (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi)

Fisher, Margery (1973) ‘Motives for mysteries’, Growing Point 12:4, 2230-2

Hewison, Robert (1987) The Heritage Industry (London: Methuen)

Hildick, Wallace (1970) Children and Fiction (London: Evans Bros.)

Holbrook, David 1961) English for Maturity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Hunt, Peter (1995) ‘How not to read a children’s book’, Children’s Literature in Education 26:4, 231-240

Inglis, Fred (1983) The Promise of Happiness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Leavis, Q.D. (1932) Fiction and the Reading Public (London: Chatto and Windus)

Ray, Sheila (1982) The Blyton Phenomenon: The Controversy Surrounding the World’s Most Successful Children’s Writer (London: Andre Deutsch)

Rudd, David (2000) Enid Blyton and the Mystery of Children’s Literature (Basingstoke: Macmillan)

Rudd, David (2008) ‘From Froebel teacher to English Disney: the phenomenal success of Enid Blyton’, in J. Briggs, D. Butts and M. Grenby (eds.) Popular Children’s Literature in Britain (Aldershot: Ashgate)

Rudd, David (2009) ‘In defence of the indefensible? Some grounds for Enid Blyton’s appeal’, in J. Maybin and N. Watson (eds.) Children’s Literature: Approaches and Territories (London: Palgrave Macmillan)

Samuel, Raphael (1994) Theatres of Memory: Volume 1, Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso)

Smallwood, Imogen (1989) A Childhood at Green Hedges (London: Methuen)

Stoney, Barbara, (1972, revised 1992) Enid Blyton: A Biography (London: Hodder and Stoughton)

Thomson, Mathew (2013) Lost Freedom: The Landscape of the Child and the British Post-War Settlement (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Tucker, Nicholas (1975) ‘The Blyton enigma’, Children’s Literature in Education 19, 191-197

Tucker, Nicholas (2009) ‘Twentieth century British publishing’, in J. Maybin and N. Watson (eds.) Children’s Literature: Approaches and Territories (London: Palgrave Macmillan)

Welch, Colin (1958) ‘Dear little Noddy: a parent’s lament’, Encounter 10:1, 18-23

Woods, Michael (1969) ‘The Blyton line: a psychologist’s view’, Lines 2:7, 8-16

 

Other media sources

BBC Archive Collection of Blyton-related broadcasts, including TV and radio programmes and interviews from 1963, 1974, 1975, 1997 and 2008: http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/blyton/

BBC Archive collection of papers about Blyton’s relationship with the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/blytonandthebbc/index.shtml

Miriam Elia (2015) ‘The satire that sold a thousand stocking fillers: Ladybird Books mimic satirical hit ‘We Go To The Gallery’ (blog): https://nothingintherulebook.com/tag/miriam-elia/

Philip Pullman, quoted in BBC News story, ‘The mystery of Enid Blyton’s revival, 5 September 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7591648.stm

Ariane Sherine (2016) Stop Censoring Enid Blyton! Article in The Spectator 2016: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/09/stop-censoring-enid-blyton/

Bruno Vincent, ‘Enid Blyton and me’, talk at the British Academy, London, 2017: https://soundcloud.com/britishacademy/enid-blyton-and-me-bruno-vincent

 

Blyton websites

Enid Blyton Society: http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/

Official Blyton website: https://www.enidblyton.co.uk/

www.EnidBlyton.net – large fan site

 

TV Versions

All available via YouTube

The Comic Strip Presents: Five Go Mad in Dorset (Channel 4, 1982)

The Comic Strip Presents: Five Go Mad on Mescalin (Channel 4, 1983)

Enid (TV Movie, dir. James Hawes, BBC, 2009)

The Famous Five (Southern TV, two series, 1978-79)

The Famous Five (Tyne Tees TV, two series, 1995-1999)