Reviewing and editing the text of Enid Blyton’s books has been an ongoing process, beginning in her own lifetime and continuing now and, we anticipate, into the future. At Enid Blyton Entertainment (owners of the Enid Blyton estate and copyright, and part of Hachette UK), our intention is to keep Enid Blyton’s books and stories at the heart of every childhood, as they have been for generations. To do so, we work to ensure that there are no offensive terms in the books – changing words where the definition is unclear in context and therefore the usage is confusing, and where words have been used in an inappropriate or offensive sense – while retaining the original language as far as is possible. This enables a very wide international audience of children to enjoy the books, while also understanding that they were written and set in the past.
Enid Blyton’s six books about Malory Towers were published one a year from 1946 to 1951. There are six additional books, now considered as books 6-12 in the series, written by Pamela Cox in 2009. These were reissued alongside the original books in 2019. When the books were reissued with new covers in 2019, minor editorial amendments were made where necessary (to correct errors, to restore original text that had previously been changed, or to bring the text in line with the editorial standards above).
In 2019, we also published a book called New Class at Malory Towers containing four short stories by different authors (Narinder Dhami, Patrice Lawrence, Lucy Mangan and Rebecca Westcott). The book Malory Towers: Darrell and Friends (by Narinder Dhami, 2020) is a novelisation of the CBBC TV adaptation of Malory Towers.
In new editions of Enid Blyton books, we do not change language for the sake of modernising it. The books’ period setting is part of their charm and is enjoyed by readers of all ages. Any historic changes previously made to new editions, which come under the category of ‘modernisation’ in this context, have been or are being restored to the original text at the point of reprint.
