Introduction:
Enid Blyton is a renowned British author, famous for her children's books that have been beloved by generations. However, her life has been shrouded in mystery, with many rumors and controversies surrounding her personal life and writing. Nadia Cohen's book "The Real Enid Blyton" aims to uncover the truth behind the author's life and provide an insightful look into her writing process and inspirations.

Review:
"The Real Enid Blyton" is a fascinating biography that explores the life of one of the most popular children's authors of all time. Nadia Cohen delves into Enid Blyton's personal life, examining her relationships with her family, friends, and colleagues, and providing a glimpse into the woman behind the books.

One of the strengths of the book is its focus on Blyton's writing process. Cohen examines Blyton's inspirations, from her childhood memories to her travels and experiences, and how she translated those into her stories. The book also provides insights into Blyton's work ethic and her dedication to her craft, making it a valuable read for aspiring writers.

"The Real Enid Blyton" also sheds light on some of the controversies surrounding the author, such as accusations of racism and sexism in her books. Cohen explores these issues in-depth and provides a nuanced view of Blyton's work and legacy.

Here is a quote from the book that captures its essence:

"Enid Blyton's books were not always perfect, but they were a reflection of their time, and they provided children with a sense of wonder and adventure."

It is an informative and engaging read for both children and adults. Overall, it is a must-read for anyone interested in the life and work of this well-known author

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. I loved Enid Blyton’s books as a child and they definitely developed my love of reading. This book was a great insight into the woman behind the books. A great read that I really enjoyed!

As a child, I devoured all her books, I even just bought a collection of Mallory Towers for my granddaughter.
This book was detailed and it kept my interest.
There were a few surprises such as her interaction with her own children.
Overall, it was interesting, detailed and a great insight into the life of this brilliant but complex woman.,

When someone is described as being a personality with as many layers as an onion that sums up Enid Blyton for me. She was a very complex woman right from childhood - I loved her as an author and I have fond memories of having midnight feasts when I was a young girl. I always had one of her books in my hand and even read the Mallory Towers and St Clare's books when I was in my 30's - However I must remember that watching a series about Mallory Towers didn't even come close to how it was in my imagination.

This was an advance copy which I enjoyed reading and it gave me an insight into my first author that I got so much joy from reading her books.

This was a fantastic book. I just loved learning about Enid Blyton's life. The book was extremely interesting and held my attention throughout. There was a tiny bit of repetition but this didn't affect my reading experience. I just found it fascinating reading. I thought that the author did an excellent job of providing a full history with some brilliant pictures. You could tell that the author knew the subject well and that the book was well-researched. As there were plenty of sources and references used. I loved reading about Enid's involvement with her child readers. I found it quite shocking learning about her relationship with her own children. It was amazing learning about her speed at writing books. As a child I loved her books especially bimbo and topsy. The author also looks at the issues around her language and changing times. Making Blyton seem like she had hatred for certain people. I really couldn't put this book down and had to binge-read it. I definitely recommend reading this book if like me you loved her books.

Only the highest of praise goes out to the author and publishers for bringing us this extremely interesting book.

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/the-real-enid-blyton-by-nadia-cohen-pen-sword-publishers-5-stars under my name ladyreading365

While all humans have biases, and those biases inevitably crawl into our writing, I do believe that what distinguishes an autobiography from a biography is not just the point of view, but also a respectable distance from the subject. The self-author gets to canvas for themselves, but the biographer is responsible for a certain level of wider perspective.

My rating of The Real Enid Blyton is largely based on the author’s inability to maintain that perspective. It may be fair to expect that a biographer of an author may be a big fan (or a big critic), but much of this biography felt rather like a defence, written by someone who is incensed by a slight towards their childhood hero. And of course, one of the great challenges of growing up is learning that our heroes are fallible.

Like much of the world’s readers, Enid Blyton’s books formed a large part of my early reading-life. My good fortune is that I did not idolise her. I had no idea who she was, from whence, and whether she was even still alive (she wasn’t). So reading a whole lot of opinions about her - many negative - does nothing to my sense of self, and it does not shake my world. It doesn’t even make me regret reading her books.

As a subject, Blyton was certainly an interesting - albeit, annoying - individual. As someone who has always wished to successfully publish a novel (but never even managed to complete a first draft), her achievements are noteworthy. There is much that can be learned from someone who understood children, could write what they wanted to read, to both inspire them, AND capitalise on it. There is also much that authors and other creatives could learn to avoid from Blyton’s story, and this is where Nadia Cohen falls short.

Setting the scene, the first third of The Real Enid Blyton is fairly neutral, and factual. Cohen seems able to view Blyton’s personal battles and faults with balance. As the biography progresses to addressing Blyton’s writing - specifically, the criticism towards it - it becomes more and more clear that Cohen is not only a fan, but one who is unwilling to consider the criticisms levelled at Blyton as anything but vitriol. Her unconditional defence of Blyton is proven by the choice of vocabulary: Blyton “endured” condemnation; criticism of The Famous Five was “incredulous”; and Cohen “begs to differ.”

Unfortunately, Cohen’s analysis of criticism towards Blyton’s work lacks nuance. Half of her defence is limited to, “well, that simply isn’t true,” rather than providing a debate of substance. The other half is along the lines of, “Remember, Enid was a product of her time” - an excuse that has never been robust enough to justify any kind of bigotry, and never will. Furthermore, much of the criticism emerged during Blyton’s lifetime - so a product of which time was she, exactly?

My copy had no references, which is concerning, but it might be that it was not included in the advanced copy. Certainly, it seems that the biography would have benefited from a greater variety of sources.

Titling her work “The Real Enid Blyton” implies that other accounts of Blyton have been lacking - ergo, that this work is most complete, and most accurate. Having taken this burden upon herself from the very title sets a huge expectation, and unfortunately, not one that is successfully met.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, Pen & Sword, for granting this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This fairly short biography, of a writer I grew up reading a lot of as a child, was unfortunately a bit hit-and-miss for me. The biographical sections were written pretty well, with the first half about Enid Blyton's childhood and early adult life, and then her damaging relationship with her first husband and children, before her poignantly depicted problems with dementia, all taking a balanced and nuanced look at both the harm and joy she caused, as well as the impact of her own childhood on her later life. I found these parts very interesting and worthwhile.

Once the book started talking about her books and their impact however, the book lost its shape and sharpness. The book moved from chronological to apparently grouping the books by theme, which would have been a good move had the examination of the books been more cohesive, and the critiques less repetitive. As it was it seemed to vaguely summarise most the books in a page before recycling 'critics said they were rubbish but children liked them' over again. It would have been more interesting to have actually delved into the books to address these comments.

I had a particular bugbear with the lack of interest given to the Naughtiest Girl in the School series. It beginning with a factual ertor by saying that Blyton wrote them after becoming interested in writing school stories in the early 1950s (The Naughtiest Girl in the School was published in 1940, St. Clare's the year later, Malory Towers in the mid-40s!), and then summarises the school as being different merely because it was co-ed, and so ignores the major differences in discipline and school setup that were huge to me as a child and adult. A school that relied on restorative justice (with offenders listened to to find their family background for reasons for their behaviour and then new privileges granted to help them to overcome their issues rather than a mere punitive punishment) and socialist money distribution would have been very interesting to have delved further into, and to see what the original reactions to this story were. The punishment seemed so strongly in contrast to her punitive ways as a parent, and this would also have been interesting to examine.

The discussion of Blyton's racism was very casual handwaving of the 'it was a different time' variety, and a very dismissive attitude to any of the attempts to make more recent editions less so. The one nuanced comment from a POC writer, of the harms and benefits of the stories was cited once to show that actually it's all fine, instead of it provoking any depth to the discussion.

The last few chapters are just a copy and paste job of different critics with little or no authorial evaluation, and with no proper referencing it is hard to follow anything up.

A promising start to the book that ended in a rush, and while the dates ussue for the school stories may have been a singular typo, that, plus the lack of interest in many of the books, did leave me sceptical as to the exhaustiveness of the research.

3 stars, for the interesting personal biographical parts only.


*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free ARC*

Having read some of Enid Blyton's books I was keen to read this one. I found it to be a real eye-opener. It was so surprising that despite producing many books over the years that captured the imagination of children across the world that she wasn't very warm toward her own children. I also found her approach to personal relationships interesting, cutting people out when she felt she had no further use for them. There is so much here that I didn't know. An immensely fascinating read which I'm extremely grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for for providing me with this review copy.

I don't think that I can thank Enid Blyton for my love of reading but she certainly helped to keep me turning pages.
So much so, that I loved re-visiting the school of Malory Towers when I was in my late 20's.

I don't think I expected this book to be as well researched as it was. I'm not sure what I expected but I was pleasantly surprised by this.

As a child I loved the stories of Enid Blyton so I would often be at the library excitedly handing over my library ticket to get the next book in the series of the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. Her books held such a magical inspiration for me so I was very much looking forward to reading her biography and it has not disappointed at all. It was extremely fascinating as there was so much more she achieved throughout her life and I had no idea about her charitable enterprises.
I really enjoyed this and felt that it was sensitively written

I greedily devoured the stories of Enid Blyton as a child, one of the most prolific writers ever. I loved The Girls of St Clares, the Malory Towers series, the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. Her works contributed towards me becoming a child bookworm more so than any other writer and this biography was eye-opening, enlightening, informational and an indulgent, nostalgic journey of sentimentality. Fascinating!

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Pen & Sword via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

Like many children I adored the stories of Enid Blyton, one of the most prolific writers ever. I loved The Faraway Tree and then the schoolgirls of St Clares. Not to mention the Famous Five. I was aware, even at a young age, that teachers and academics looked down on Blyton.

Over the years many of her books have been rewritten or even cancelled because some of the content is no longer suited to our times. But she is still a publishing phenomenon.

I was interested to learn more about the woman. Traumatized in childhood when her beloved father left his wife and family, Enid was a rebel and early feminist who refused to take on domestic chores when her brothers didn't have to do them.

Her sunny stories and happy endings belied a complex life of infidelities and unconventional friendships. She was sometimes cruel and callous towards her family and friends as a defensive mechanism.

Enid was a successful businesswoman, ahead of her time. She wrote books until she could not physically write another word, famously producing thousands of words a day hunched over her manual typewriter.

She is the most prolific children’s author in history, but Enid Blyton is also the most controversial. A remarkable woman who wrote hundreds of books in a career spanning forty years, even her razor sharp mind could never have predicted her enormous global audience. Now, fifty years after her death, Enid remains a phenomenon, with sales outstripping every rival.

Parents and teachers lobbied against Enid’s books, complaining they were simplistic, repetitive and littered with sexist and snobbish undertones. Blatant racist slurs were particularly shockingly; foreign and working class characters were treated with a distain that horrifies modern readers. But regardless of the criticism, Enid worked until she could not physically write another word, famously producing thousands of words a day hunched over her manual typewriter.

She imaged a more innocent world, where children roamed unsupervised, and problems were solved with midnight feasts or glorious picnics with lashings of ginger beer. Smugglers, thieves, spies and kidnappers were thwarted by fearless gangs who easily outwitted the police, while popular schoolgirls scored winning goals in nail-biting lacrosse matches.

Enid carefully crafted her public image to ensure her fans only knew of this sunny persona, but behind the scenes, she weaved elaborate stories to conceal infidelities, betrayals and unconventional friendships, lied about her childhood and never fully recovered from her parent’s marriage collapsing. She grew up convinced that her beloved father abandoned her for someone he loved more, and few could ever measure up to her impossible standards.

A complex and immature woman, Enid was plagued by insecurities and haunted by a dark past. She was prone to bursts of furious temper, yet was a shrewd businesswoman years ahead of her time. She may not have been particularly likeable, and her stories infuriatingly unimaginative, but she left a vast literary legacy to generations of children.

Insightful book well researched into an author I adored as a child and still read her books as an adult.

Like most children who loved reading, I adored and devoured Enid Blyton books while growing up. When I was a teenager in the late 1990s I became aware that Blyton had fallen out of favour and I remember the uproar when the publisher was "updating" the vocabulary used in her books - replacing children named Dick and Fanny, for example, which was probably wise. I think it was the removal of "lashings of ginger beer" that had most Blyton fans up in arms!

I have always been curious to know more about the woman behind this phenomenal success in children's literature and publishing, something even JK Rowling has never transcended. Blyton died in 1968 and yet her books continue to sell in the millions, year after year, nearly six decades later. So...who was she?

Unfortunately, we don't ever really find out. This simplistic biography suggests Blyton was a very emotionally immature, mercurial, selfish and quite cruel person. There is very little empathy evoked for the biography's subject at all. The figures I felt the most empathy for were Enid's mother and younger daughter Imogen, whose own book on her mother I've been inspired to seek out! If we are to believe this book, the "real" Enid Blyton, despite her merry persona, was quite cold and single-minded, unrepentant about cutting herself off from people she found too difficult to deal with. Her mother, brothers, first husband and even friends found ties unexpectedly, and permanently, severed.

Having said that - how can we be sure this is the "real" Enid Blyton we're being presented with? This book's biggest issue is the lack of any referencing system whatsoever, which is a serious shortcoming for anything claiming to be a biography. My ARC did not contain any referencing at all (perhaps this is not the case for the printed edition?). Letters, diaries, quotes from articles and other sources abound in this book but they aren't backed up by any dates, or even a reference list at the end. Nadia Cohen must have done research for the writing of this book, and the lack of referencing really does her a disservice and makes the reader question the validity of sources used. For a title containing "The Real", one needs to be able to back that up with solid evidence! I found it deeply problematic that there was nothing to back up any of the "facts" the author was basing the story on.

Some investigation reveals that this is a book in a series - The Real Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl, etc. This suggests to me that this isn't aimed at an audience who expects a serious biography with references and lists of sources. I really hope they improve this for any future editions of this book.

An author and cultural figure of Blyton's stature, however privileged and problematic by today's standards, surely warrants a serious biography that is historically and factually sound, rigorously researched, and that evokes the subject in such a way to bring them alive and relevant again in the present. I was hopeful this was that biography, but I don't feel I got to know the "real" Enid Blyton at all. I don't think it helped that the book is written in a very uneven way - at one point I was unsure whether this book was aimed at children or adults - and is very repetitive with the facts. I did find it tiresome that it was mentioned many times that Enid's emotional growth was stunted by her parents' separation when she was 13. There wasn't enough credit given to the reader to put two and two together for themselves.

I do not relish giving a critical review - I'm sure the author worked very hard on it, and it is certainly a fascinating premise for a biography. But ultimately it whetted my appetite for a Blyton biography rather than satisfied. I'm doing a PhD in history so perhaps that made me more critical than the average reader. Referencing is absolutely everything in my world ;)

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review, which I'm sorry is not more positive.

Reading a biography of someone whose books one has long admired is always challenging. The read can be wonderful ... or it can challenge, as some (or maybe a lot) of the veneer comes off in the reading.

A fair bit of veneer came off for me in this biography of Enid Blyton. I grew up reading her _Famous Five_ and _Secret Seven_ series, plus the odd other book here and there, and enjoyed them immensely. Flawed? Of course. But the nostalgia and enjoyment are still ever present now, thirty-some years later.

Blyton had a number of struggles in her life, and that saddened me. It's always easy for those of us reading about events years later to interject "what we would have done" instead--because hindsight is 20/20, right? "Especially" for events not our own.

It didn't help that this read had a fair bit of factual inconsistencies, and a few leaps in logic. I'm not quite sure how Cohen got from point A to point B sometimes--the logic just didn't follow. The writing style wasn't really my favorite, either; I found it hard to relate to Blyton--a hard thing, as she was the subject of the book and the reason I picked it up to begin with!

Can't say I'll revisit the book or Blyton's life, unless I find a really good bio. But, I'll still happily engage with the series from my childhood.

I received an eARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Idk how much of this book is true but wow I knew there was some controversy surrounding Enid Blyton but I didn't know to what extent.
I don't think I will ever look at her books the same way again knowing what went on behind the writing process.
The part that I was caught by the most was how she said in her magazine or smthg how a real mother should not be working, but being attentive and taking care of the kids but in reality she did the exact opposite of what she said.
Def worth a read! Specially if you loveddd Enid Blyton's books as a kid:)

Idk how much of this book is true but wow I knew there was some controversy surrounding Enid Blyton but I didn't know to what extent.
I don't think I will ever look at her books the same way again knowing what went on behind the writing process.
The part that I was caught by the most was how she said in her magazine or smthg how a real mother should not be working, but being attentive and taking care of the kids but in reality she did the exact opposite of what she said.
Def worth a read! Specially if you loveddd Enid Blyton's books as a kid:)

I read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

I really enjoyed this
Although I've read loads of her books, I can honestly say this was a learning experience for me
Really well researched
loved it

My early childhood (in the 1970s) was spent in a small Cornish village, where I was allowed to roam amongst disused tin mines, slate quarries, and copper and arsenic mines. Bad weather was made bearable by a steady flow of Enid Blyton books, with settings not unlike where I lived.
This new biography is written with skill and integrity by an author experienced in some of the darker aspects of children's fiction and its authors. The books are reappraised in the context of the time and Enid's remarkable output of nearly 800 published books acknowledged. Despite a critical backlash her books still sell at the rate of one a minute in England alone. A must-read for all lovers of Blyton and her characters.

This is one book that hsould have been written so long ago, but fortunately, and talented and indepth researcher took this one on.