Introduction
When it comes to children’s books, probably no other English author can come close to the popularity of Enid Blyton. Enid Mary Blyton is one of Britain’s most popular authors, with numerous publications of stories, poems and plays targeted towards children.
Early life
Enid Blyton was born on the 11th of August 1897 in the eastern part of Dulwich in London, England. Her father was a salesman while her mother was a homemaker. She was the eldest of three siblings, having two younger brothers. As a child, she adored her father and shared a special bond with him. Her father had a keen interest in music, literature, theatre, gardening and nature. These interests were passed to her as well. Her father eventually walked out of the family when she was thirteen. This incident and its effects put a blow on her relationship with him and worsened her relationship with her mother. Unfortunately, Enid would never try to repair either relationship and remained distant the rest of her life.
In the September of 1916, she decided to enroll in a teacher training course at Ipswich High School, Ipswich. After finishing and getting her degree in 1918, she taught in a boys-school for a brief amount of time, before working as a nursery governess. She finally started writing as a profession in 1920.
Career
Enid Blyton showed an interest in writing from a young age. At the age of 14, she made her first foray into the literary world through a poetry competition. Her first publication was in March 1916 with a poetry submission in a children’s magazine called Nash’s Magazine. She actively started writing in 1920 and her work began to be noticed by quite a few publications. Her first published book was a twenty-four-page collection of poems. It was called Child Whispers and was published in 1922. She gained momentum as a writer in 1923, when her work of poems was published in the publication Teachers’ World alongside famous writers like Rudyard Kipling, Walter de la Mare and G.K. Chesterton.
Her first full length book and first series was Adventures of the Wishing Chair of the ‘Wishing Chair’ series. It was published in 1937. This would see the beginning of several of her famous series of books such as fantasy series like the Faraway Tree series and Wishing Chair series, the boarding school series like the Naughtiest Girl series, the St. Clare series, and the Malory Towers series along with detective series like the Secret Seven series, the Famous Five series and the Secret series. They continue to be popular and a sight seen in children’s section of libraries even today.
Apart from writing books, Enid Blyton was also had regular columns in magazines where she wrote about the mundane aspects of her life, along with her observations of her surrounding nature, an interest she had since childhood.
Death
In her mid-sixties, Enid Blyton began to show symptoms of dementia. She spent the final months of her life in a nursing home in London and passed away on the 28th of November 1968.
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