Literary scholar Stefanie Jakobi summarizes the special appeal of Enid Blyton’s work in one word: nostalgia. “The stories reveal a longing for the quintessential Britishness,” explains the 37-year-old, who has been researching children’s and young adult literature at the University of Bremen since 2015. Blyton’s books take readers on a journey into 1940s rural Britain. They reflect an ideal: a safe place for children to act independently and go on adventures. The heroes are part of a homogeneous society – the middle class. They prefer to keep to themselves. As the stories unfold, it becomes clear that this separation is desired.

Blyton does not just fulfill a yearning of the English population. “She was, without a doubt, one of the most prolific authors of all time,” Jakobi adds. She wrote more than 700 books and around 10,000 short stories and is particularly well known for her adventure and school stories. She kept in regular touch with her young readers through a magazine and enjoyed fulfilling the wishes of children and young people. This commercial success was widely recognized in Great Britain and others wanted a piece of the pie. As early as the 1950s, the first translations appeared.

Fourth Most Translated Author Across the Globe

“This is how Enid Blyton became one of the first global phenomena,” Stefanie Jakobi states. Blyton is the fourth most translated author in the world, after Agatha Christie, Jules Verne, and William Shakespeare, according to the Index Translationum, the UNESCO database for book translations. Her young heroes are represented in more than 90 languages. This success is undeniable. It is certainly of such a magnitude that it cannot be overseen in research. Or can it? “Interestingly, she hasn’t played a major role in research so far,” explains Jakobi. There is a prevailing defensive attitude among researchers who consider Blyton’s texts to be of limited literary value. “A predominant point of view when it comes to Blyton is ‘If you know one, you know them all’,”Jakobi says.

Personally, she also has a distant relationship to the St. Clare’s twins, Dolly, and the other Blyton protagonists. This is not simply because of the inferior literary quality. “The stories are full of stereotypes. They’re also racist, sexist, and classist,” Jakobi explains. For instance, in the St. Clare’s series, a nouveau riche girl is excluded from the class community because she brags about her wealth and at the same time does not wash her neck properly. Today, this would be identified as a clear instance of classism. The adventures of the Famous Five are also often characterized by racism. The criminals stem almost exclusively from marginalized groups.

Books Removed from Libraries

This was evident as early as the stories were first published. “At the time, the books were removed from libraries because of their aesthetic weaknesses,” Jakobi explains. But the stories still found their readers. In research, Blyton’s work was reduced to its obvious formulaic nature and problematic content for decades. According to Jakobi, there were hardly any other ways to approach her literature.

Until now. At the end of September 2024, Jakobi, together with her colleagues Dr. Aileen Behrendt (University of Potsdam) and Dr. Hadassah Stichnothe (Freie Universität Berlin), organized the international conference “Writing a British Childhood in a Global Context? Critical Perspectives on Enid Blyton” at the University of Potsdam. Philologists from the UK, Ireland, France, Greece, Eastern Europe, India, and Australia got together to share their thoughts on the phenomenon of Enid Blyton. “We wanted to know: What happens to texts that are so very ‘British’ when they migrate to international contexts?” explains Jakobi. The answer, after 20 conference contributions: A lot!

Not All Enid Blyton Stories Are the Same

The conference confirmed what the researchers had suspected beforehand: Not all Enid Blyton stories are the same. The translations often omitted or altered parts of the original stories. This means that British, French, and German readers end up reading very different texts. The extent of these differences is particularly obvious in the Dolly series. In the English version, the main character attends university after obtaining her high school diploma. In the German version though, Dolly returns to her old boarding school because she found university life too challenging. She marries one of the boarding school teachers and finds her true calling as a housewife and mother. “This is in line with how femininity is presented in German-language children’s and young adult literature from the 1960s,” Jakobi explains.

It seems astonishing to us today that an entire novel was rewritten for this purpose. And it gets even more interesting. Over the past few decades, many young adult books have been released under the Enid Blyton label that were not actually written by her. Also, her distinctive signature with two short dashes below her name was already being used for other authors during her lifetime. After she passed away in 1968, the Enid Blyton brand grew further and thus became increasingly diverse.

Stereotypes Remain Unchanged

But one thing remained the same – the stereotypes. For example, although the word “gypsy” is no longer used in modern versions, Jakobi says that in many cases these changes are purely linguistic modifications. “Europa-Verlag has left its old Famous Five audio books largely unedited and only added a disclaimer at the beginning,” Jakobi observed. The disclaimer point out the discriminatory nature of the stories and that they are no longer compatible with today’s ideas of a pluralistic society. However, they decided “not to change them in order to not hide the cultural failures of the past.”

Jakobi is skeptical about this. “To be honest, that doesn’t mean anything to the children who listen to it today. They just skip the weird intro or forget about it in the course of the story.” “Ultimately, these texts perpetuate stereotypes about criminals based on ethnicity.” In her opinion, it is time to challenge these narratives and give a voice to the many stories and diverse perspectives that exist beyond them. “We have new stories that deserve to be heard and given space. However, for critical reflection, Blyton and her texts still offer a wealth of material,” the literary scholar is sure.

More on the Topic

Faculty 10: Linguistics and Literary Studies website (in German only)

Conference website

German academic online website on child and youth media research