Personal Life

Blyton was born on 11 August 1897 at 354 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London, the eldest child of Thomas Carey Blyton (1870–1920), a salesman, and his wife, Theresa Mary Harrison (1874–1950). There were two younger brothers, Hanly (b. 1899), and Carey (b. 1902), who were born after the family had moved to the neighbouring suburb of Beckenham. Enid was a talented pianist, and obtained a Licentiate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music, but gave up her musical studies when she trained as a teacher. She taught for five years at Bickley and Surbiton, writing in her spare time.

Her first book, Child Whispers, a collection of poems, was published in 1922.

On 28 August 1924 Blyton married Major Hugh Alexander Pollock DSO (1888–1971), editor of the book department in the publishing firm of George Newnes, which published two of her books that year. The couple moved to Buckinghamshire. Eventually they moved to a house called "Green Hedges" in Beaconsfield. They had two children: Gillian Mary Baverstock (b. 15 July 1931) and Imogen Mary Smallwood (b. 27 October 1935). By 1939 her marriage to Pollock was in difficulties, and in 1941 she met Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters (1892-1967), a London surgeon, with whom she began a friendship which quickly developed into something deeper. After each had divorced, they married at the City of Westminster register office on 20 October 1943, and she subsequently changed the surname of her two daughters to Darrell Waters. Pollock remarried and had little contact with his daughters thereafter. Blyton’s second marriage was very happy and, as far as her public was concerned, she moved smoothly into her role as a devoted doctor’s wife, living with him and her two daughters at Green Hedges.

Afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease, Blyton was moved into a nursing home three months before her death; she died at the Greenways Nursing Home, 11 Fellows Road, Hampstead, London, on 28 November 1968, and was cremated at Golders Green.

Books

Enid Blyton wrote an incredibly vast number of children’s books.

Blyton's books are generally split into three types. One involves ordinary children in extraordinary situations; having adventures, solving crimes, or otherwise finding themselves in unusual circumstances. Examples include the Famous Five and Secret Seven, and the Adventure series. The second type is the boarding school story; the plots of these are usually less extraordinary than the first type, with more emphasis on the day-to-day life at a boarding school. This is the world of the midnight feast, the practical joke, and the social interaction of the various types of character that can be found at school. Examples of this type are the Malory Towers stories, the St Clare's series, and the Naughtiest Girl books.

Blyton was motivated by the desire to empower children with the joys and skills of reading and the discovery of the world around them. Her books and stories combine exciting and powerful narratives with a clear and incisive style of writing, allowing children to use their imagination to the full while at the same time feeling an integral part of the story.

The Famous Five are probably the most famous of Blyton's creations. In 1957, the Children's Film Foundation in the UK made a film serial of Five on a Treasure Island. Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the Dog make up the Famous Five. Five on a Treasure Island is the first book in the series, and the one in which siblings Julian, Dick and Anne meet their cousin, Georgina, who answers to the name of George. In one interview, Blyton confessed that George was based on herself.

Her works celebrated good food, spirit of comradeship, and honesty. By the 1980s, Blyton's books had sold some 60 million copies and had been translated into nearly seventy languages.