Enid Blyton

Enid Blyton

Listen to charming children’s classics by beloved English author Enid Blyton – the creator of treasured tales including The Faraway Tree, The Famous Five, and The Secret Seven. Grab your headphones, hit play, and feel the warm nostalgia of Enid Blyton’s enchanting worlds where your imagination is free to roam...
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Enid Blyton is the highly successful author of countless classic children’s stories. Blyton was a prolific author who published hundreds of children’s books and short stories that have sold more than 600 million copies.

At the start of her career as a published writer, Blyton turned her hand to writing verses for greeting cards in addition to poetry, short stories, and books. Blyton’s writing first gained traction with publishers in the 1920s. However, Blyton’s best known books came later with the Faraway Tree series published in the 1930s and 40s, and The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, and Noddy books series published between 1942 and 1963.

Blyton’s Faraway Tree trilogy featured titles including The Enchanted Wood (1939) and The Magic Faraway Tree (1943). Both of these magical children’s stories are available for you to rediscover as audiobooks, performed by award-winning English actress Kate Winslet. Our listeners highly recommend Kate Winslet’s lively and energetic narration of these classic childhood books.

Blyton was married twice – first to Hugh Alexander Pollock in 1924. Hugh and Enid had two children, Gillian in 1931 and Imogen in 1935. Enid and Hugh divorced in 1942. Enid married Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters in 1943 and they remained together for the rest of their lives. Enid Blyton was born on August 11, 1897 in London. She died November 28, 1968 in London. She was 71.

Enid Blyton's Famous Five Audiobooks

Famous Five: Five On A Treasure Island cover art
Five Go Adventuring Again cover art
Five Run Away Together cover art
Famous Five: Five Go Off in a Caravan cover art
In the 1950s, Enid Blyton’s Magazine was published fortnightly. The magazine’s cover bore Enid Blyton’s name and the tagline, “best stories for all children”. There were 162 issues of the Enid Blyton Magazine that featured a letter from the author alongside with illustrations, puzzles, stories, and information about worthy charities. Blyton supported a number of charitable causes including those to help animals, and sick children.

Blyton loved to read and had a vivid imagination. From a young age her mind was full of inventive stories and despite countless rejections of her early work, Blyton persevered, reading voraciously and writing hundreds of stories. In her 1952 autobiography, The Story of My Life, Blyton offers some advice for young writers, “Fill your mind with all kinds of interesting things—the more you have in it, the more will come out of it.” Before becoming a published author, Blyton trained as a teacher from 1916-1918. She went on to teach at a boys’ preparatory school, before becoming a governess – Blyton worked in both teaching roles only briefly, before devoting all of her time to writing.

Both Enid Blyton herself, and her many children’s stories, remain popular. A television drama about Enid Blyton aired on the BBC in 2009, starring Helena Bonham Carter as Enid. The Telegraph described it at the time as “an unflinchingly honest biopic of the woman behind Noddy and The Famous Five”.

Meanwhile, generations of readers continue to enjoy Blyton's books with fans flocking to The Enid Blyton Society website which hosts an active online fan forum. The Enid Blyton forum is testament to the author’s enduring popularity – it has more than 4000 members and hundreds of thousands of posts discussing facts and trivia about Enid Blyton and her children’s fiction.

Audiobook Reviews — The Famous Five by Enid Blyton