A complicated legacy

As The Magic Faraway Tree makes its way into cinemas, we revisit the life and times of its author, Enid Blyton.

- WORDS by TIFFANY DUNK

From the age of three, acclaimed Australian author Jackie French was a voracious reader.

At seven, she was asked to list her three favourite books.

“One was Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World,” she tells The Weekly. “The other one was James A. Michener’s Hawaii. And the third was The Famous Five.

“I was reading Enid Blyton at the same time that I was reading all of these very sophisticated and challenging and beautiful adult books. On my bedside table would be Dostoevsky and War and Peace along with The Famous Five series. And that says a lot about the craft and the characters of Enid Blyton.”

Since the 1930s, Enid’s books have sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 90 languages, inspired merchandise as early as the 1940s and have spawned films, TV shows and much more.

She is one of the world’s biggest-selling authors of children’s books.

And she was prolific. In 45 years she published 753 books. Enid would boast of being able to write a book a week, jumping on her typewriter on a Monday once an idea came to her and then typing and typing until the Sunday, until she could simply type no more.

Plus, in a world decades before BookTok, she was the original influencer. When it came to her own work, she was a master publicist - making public appearances, holding events for her young readers (or “friends” as she would call them), running her own magazine, and writing an advice column for children. She was also a genius when it came to tapping into what children wanted and then serialising it to give them more at a cracking pace.