About the Author Enid Blyton

Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was a British children's writer known as both Enid Blyton and Mary Pollock. She was one of the most successful children's storytellers of the twentieth century. Once described as a "one-woman fiction machine", she is noted for numerous series of books based on recurring characters and designed for different age groups. Her books have enjoyed popular success in many parts of the world, and have sold over 400 million copies. enid blyton is the sixth most translated author worldwide: over 3400 translations of her books were available in 2007 according to UNESCO's Index Translationum; she is behind Lenin and almost equal to Shakespeare. One of her most widely known characters is Noddy, intended for early years readers. However, her main forte is the young readers' novels, where children ride out their own adventures with minimal adult help. In this genre, particularly popular series include the Famous Five (consisting of 21 novels, 1942 – 1963, based on four children and their dog), the Five Find-Outers and Dog, (15 novels, 1943-1961, where five children regularly outwit the local police) as well as the Secret Seven (15 novels, 1949 – 1963, a society of seven children who solve various mysteries). Her work involves children's adventure stories, and fantasy, sometimes involving magic. Her books were and still are enormously popular in Britain, Malta, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Australia; and as translations in the former Yugoslavia, Japan, and across most of the globe. Her work has been translated into nearly 90 languages. enid blyton's life is set to be turned into a BBC movie for the first time later in 2009. Academy Award nominated actress Helena Bonham Carter will be portraying enid blyton in the movie. Filming is set to commence on the week beginning 9 March 2009, and will be aired in Britain on BBC Four later in 2009. Bonham Carter is set to star Matthew Macfadyen and Denis Lawson who will be playing enid blyton's first husband Hugh Pollock and enid blyton's second husband Kenneth Darrell Waters respectively.

enid 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 of cutlery, and his wife, Theresa Mary, née 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 nearby suburb of Beckenham. From 1907 to 1915, enid blyton was educated at St. Christopher's School in Beckenham, where she excelled at her endeavours, leaving as head girl. She enjoyed physical activities along with the academic work, but not maths. enid blyton was a talented pianist, but gave up her musical studies when she trained as a teacher at Ipswich High School. She taught for five years at Bickley, Surbiton and Chessington, writing in her spare time. Her first book, Child Whispers, a collection of poems, was published in 1922. On 28 August 1924 enid 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 in Beaconsfield, named Green Hedges by enid blyton's readers following a competition in Sunny Stories. They had two children: Gillian Mary Baverstock (15 July 1931 – 24 June 2007) and Imogen Mary Smallwood (born 27 October 1935). In the mid-1930s enid blyton experienced a spiritual crisis, but she decided against converting to Roman Catholicism from the Church of England because she had felt it was "too restricting". Although she rarely attended church services, she saw that her two daughters were baptised into the Anglican faith and went to the local Sunday School.

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 registry 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. enid blyton's second marriage was very happy and, as far as her public image was concerned, she moved smoothly into her role as a devoted doctor's wife, living with him and her two daughters at Green Hedges. enid blyton's husband died in 1967. During the following months, she became increasingly ill. Afflicted by Alzheimer's disease, enid 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, aged 71 and was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium where her ashes remain. enid blyton's literary output was of an estimated 800 books over roughly 40 years. Chorion Limited of London now owns and handles the intellectual properties and character brands of enid blyton's Noddy and the Famous Five.