Bluemel, Kristin (2009), Intermodernism: Literary Culture in Mid-twentieth-century Britain, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 978-0-7486-3509-2 Blyton's The Faraway Tree series of books has also been adapted to television and film. On 29 September 1997 the BBC began broadcasting an animated series called The Enchanted Lands, based on the series. [169] It was announced in October 2014 that a deal had been signed with publishers Hachette for "The Faraway Tree" series to be adapted into a live-action film by director Sam Mendes' production company. Marlene Johnson, head of children's books at Hachette, said: "Enid Blyton was a passionate advocate of children's storytelling, and The Magic Faraway Tree is a fantastic example of her creative imagination." [170] Entire passages of the original have been rewritten to remove references to fighting. For instance, when the tree is taken over by Goblins in The Enchanted Wood, the Goblins were originally fought off, with descriptions of Mr. Watzisname 'pummelling them as if he were beating carpets' and the Saucepan Man throwing his saucepans at them. These have been replaced with cursory references to 'chasing'. a b "Seven Go on a 21st-Century Adventure: Enid Blyton Classics to Be Rewritten". The Independent. 28 March 2012.

The children learn of other inhabitants. There's one chap who's forgotten his name, and there's a large owl and also a washer-woman who lives near the top. When I first read about this resident laundress I visualized her balancing on a broad branch with a kind of cauldron in which she did all her washing. The woman whose name is appropriately Dame Washalot would have possessed her own house in the tree-trunk and probably washed the clothes inside but how on earth would she get rid of the water? The children receive the answer to this question — particularly Bessie! Blyton capitalised upon her commercial success as an author by negotiating agreements with jigsaw puzzle and games manufacturers from the late 1940s onwards; by the early 1960s some 146 different companies were involved in merchandising Noddy alone. [92] In 1948 Bestime released four jigsaw puzzles featuring her characters, and the first Enid Blyton board game appeared, Journey Through Fairyland, created by BGL. The first card game, Faraway Tree, appeared from Pepys in 1950. In 1954 Bestime released the first four jigsaw puzzles of the Secret Seven, and the following year a Secret Seven card game appeared. [48] Another repeated (again and again and again and again) 'gag' is where the Old Saucepan Man miss-hears every second thing said to him. "Can I have that?" "A rat you say? Where? I don't see a rat!" And on it goes. How we ... laughed. The first of twenty-eight books in Blyton's Old Thatch series, The Talking Teapot and Other Tales, was published in 1934, the same year as Brer Rabbit Retold; [22] (note that Brer Rabbit originally featured in Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris), her first serial story and first full-length book, Adventures of the Wishing-Chair, followed in 1937. The Enchanted Wood, the first book in the Faraway Tree series, published in 1939, is about a magic tree inspired by the Norse mythology that had fascinated Blyton as a child. [7] According to Blyton's daughter Gillian the inspiration for the magic tree came from "thinking up a story one day and suddenly she was walking in the enchanted wood and found the tree. In her imagination she climbed up through the branches and met Moon-Face, Silky, the Saucepan Man and the rest of the characters. She had all she needed." [23] As in the Wishing-Chair series, these fantasy books typically involve children being transported into a magical world in which they meet fairies, goblins, elves, pixies and other mythological creatures.

Faraway Tree

The Enchanted Lands", Genome Project: Radio Times 1923–2009, no.3847, BBC, 23 October 1997, p.88 , retrieved 25 February 2018 This story is the first story in the 'Magic Faraway Tree' series. It is actually not a single adventure but a collection of at least five different adventures that three children, Jo, Bessie, and Fanny, have after moving into the country. At the beginning of the book we are told that their father had got a job in the country, so they moved out to a cottage at the edge of an enchanted wood. We are not given much glimpse into the adult world here namely because not only is this a children's book, but we are looking at the world through the eyes of the children. The context that we can place this in though is that we are still in the Great Depression (there were not many jobs around) and the world was on the brink of war. However, to a child, many of these problems were far away, though they do come upon them occasionally. At one point in the story we are told that their father had lost a lot of money and they were struggling to make ends meet when all of the sudden the children return with the solution. I have a newer version, so names have been changed from Jo, Bess and Fanny to Joe, Beth and Frannie. I have mixed feelings about the update. I understand why some people would object to Fanny in particular. It's the loss of Bessie that I find saddest as it was updated because Bess/Bessie has fallen out of fashion. While I like the name Beth too, I don't see the issue with an old-fashioned children's book maintaining an older style of name. Originally published in the month of May in 1939, this was first brought out by the publisher George Newnes. Setting up the characters and the premise, this is the first book in the series of ‘The Faraway Tree’, as it sees them arrive for the first time. It also establishes the world it’s set within, as it depicts the magic and wonder of it all, allowing it to come alive for all the young readers.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Ray, Sheila (2004), "Blyton, Enid Mary (1897–1968)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.), Oxford University Press, doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/31939 , retrieved 19 June 2008 (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) This delightful story from classic children's author Enid Blyton was first published in 1939 and has delighted children ever since. This new edition has been given a more modern face-lift - for example, changing the children's names (originally Joe, Bessie and Fanny) for more contemporary-sounding alternatives - but all the fun and magic of Blyton's original has been retained for a new generation of readers. Adams, Stephen (15 November 2009), "BBC Banned Enid Blyton For 30 Years", The Telegraph , retrieved 20 January 2014Dow, James (25 January 2002), "Toytown to Tinseltown: Noddy film on the cards", The Scotsman, archived from the original on 8 July 2014 , retrieved 28 March 2014 Sunny Stories was renamed Enid Blyton's Sunny Stories in January 1937, and served as a vehicle for the serialisation of Blyton's books. Her first Naughty Amelia Jane story, about an anti-heroine based on a doll owned by her daughter Gillian, [61] was published in the magazine. [1] Blyton stopped contributing in 1952, and it closed down the following year, shortly before the appearance of the new fortnightly Enid Blyton Magazine written entirely by Blyton. [62] The first edition appeared on 18 March 1953, [63] and the magazine ran until September 1959. [7]

Moon-Face is so named for his round face that looks like the moon. His house is similarly round and is filled with curved furniture. He is the owner of the slippery-slip, a slide which starts in the middle of his house which lets you slide down to the bottom of the Faraway Tree instead of climbing down. It is used as a means of exiting the tree and has played an important part in some of the adventures, where others have sought control of the tree or their rooms; In the first novel in the series, Jo, Bessie and Fanny (edited to Joe, Beth and Frannie in revised editions) move to live near a large forest, which the locals call "The Enchanted Wood". One day they go for a walk in the wood and discover it really is enchanted. They encounter a group of elves who have been robbed of important papers by a gnome. They chase the gnome and recover the papers, but the gnome himself escapes up a huge tree whose branches seem to reach into the clouds. This is the Faraway Tree. The initially reluctant DS#1 (age 8) was sold after a chapter or two, stole the book, and immediately read the whole thing - further, he read it at least twice while I was still doling it out a chapter or two at a time to his siblings. Earlier this week during a coversation with KC 2.0, I was reminded of my favourite childhood novel EVER ! In 1950 Blyton established the company Darrell Waters Ltd to manage her affairs. By the early 1950s she had reached the peak of her output, often publishing more than fifty books a year, and she remained extremely prolific throughout much of the decade. [52] By 1955 Blyton had written her fourteenth Famous Five novel, Five Have Plenty of Fun, her fifteenth Mary Mouse book, Mary Mouse in Nursery Rhyme Land, her eighth book in the Adventure series, The River of Adventure, and her seventh Secret Seven novel, Secret Seven Win Through. She completed the sixth and final book of the Malory Towers series, Last Term at Malory Towers, in 1951. [45]

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The second thing to note is that if you read this book as a child then all four children in the modern edition will have changed their names! This is probably the best Blyton I've read so far. I thought it quite good in pre-reading, and when it came time to include the kids, they were absolutely enthralled - Blyton really did know her audience. She was fairly shameless about incorporating things that they would like - a visit to the Land of Birthdays, where the characters had the Most Fun Party Ever, was the capstone. A British institution almost in her own right, the famous children’s author Enid Blyton was well known for her fun, friendly and accessible family oriented literature. With many enduring characters such as Noddy, the Famous Five, and the Secret Seven, she was definitely an author of her time. The stories she wrote, though, have lived on throughout the years, seeing various different incarnations over time, whilst always remaining true to the spirit of the originals. One such series that she’s particularly well known for is that of her Faraway Tree series of novels, an enduring collection of novels that retain a timeless quality to this very day. Set in a fantastical land they told stories that worked alongside the illustrations of Georgina Hargreaves to tell a magical tale of childhood wonder and enchantment. Following the adventures of Jo, Bessie and Fanny, it sees the three children moving into a new home by an enchanted forest with a magical tree they climb, taking them off to far and distant lands of magic and wonder. Commire, Anne; Klezmer, Deborah, eds. (2001). "Blyton, Enid (1897–1968)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Gale Group. ISBN 978-0-7876-4072-9. Archived from the original on 11 June 2014. Over the years, the Faraway Tree stories have been illustrated by various artists including Dorothy Wheeler, Rene Cloke, Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone and Georgina Hargreaves. Faraway Tree Books, Stories and Games

Jo, Bessie and Fanny come to live at the edge of the Enchanted Wood where the trees, "a darker green than usual," whisper their secrets: "Wisha-wisha-wisha." In the wood is the Faraway Tree — a huge tree inhabited by fairy-folk and laden with fruit of all kinds from acorns to lemons. Its topmost branches lead to ever-changing magical lands above the swirling clouds. Briggs, Julia; Butts, Dennis; Orville Grenby, Matthew (2008), Popular Children's Literature in Britain, Ashgate Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84014-242-6 In 1960 alone, eleven Noddy books were published, including the strip books Noddy and the Runaway Wheel, Noddy's Bag of Money, and Noddy's Car Gets into Trouble. [1] In 1997, stories from the novels were adapted into animated ten-minute episodes for the TV series Enid Blyton's Enchanted Lands. The series, entitled Enchanted Lands: The Magic of the Faraway Tree had 13 episodes:Mangan, Lucy (22 December 2005). "The Famous Five– in their own words". The Guardian . Retrieved 22 January 2014. Dixon, Bob (1974). "The Nice, the Naughty and the Nasty: The Tiny World of Enid Blyton". Children's Literature in Education. 5 (3): 43–61. doi: 10.1007/BF01141765. S2CID 145195783. Apart from breaks to play golf and spend time with her children, Enid's working week was consumed with writing new stories, correcting proofs and answering the hundreds of letters she was, by now, receiving weekly. She explained that her characters evolved organically and her stories seemed to naturally form, she described herself as "merely a sightseer, a reporter, and interpreter." In July 1923, Blyton published Real Fairies, a collection of thirty-three poems written especially for the book with the exception of "Pretending", which had appeared earlier in Punch magazine. [16] The following year, she published The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies, illustrated by Horace J. Knowles, [17] and in 1926 the Book of Brownies. [18] Several books of plays appeared in 1927, including A Book of Little Plays and The Play's the Thing with the illustrator Alfred Bestall. [19]