Uncensored Enid Blyton Books Kept Under Counter in Public Libraries
Enid Blyton is the latest beloved children’s author to be censored by the wokies – although, the censorship may have been going on for some time. MailOnline has more.
Enid Blyton’s classic novels are beloved globally but some of her works have been rewritten to remove ‘outdated’ language.
And uncensored versions are being placed in “off-limit storage spaces” in libraries to prevent the public from “stumbling upon” the old wording.
Recently edited works are displayed publicly across Devon’s libraries but tales which have not yet been amended are not so easy to access.
If a reader requests an original version of titles like The Famous Five, they will be shown a verbal trigger warning, according to the Telegraph.
The original versions are catalogued online and if a reader chooses to access one, a warning system will remind them of the language used within the older editions.
The changes were revealed in Devon County Council documents.
It was explained that Library Unlimited – which runs the council’s library service – regularly audits books, replacing them with altered versions.
The documents say that where popular titles contain “increasingly outdated” language, libraries purchase new, edited versions.
The off-limits area of libraries also contains books that have been removed due to staff or customer complaints – such as the autobiography of previously-incarcerated Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League.
Blyton composed more than 700 books, including beloved titles like The Famous Five series and Noddy, from the late 1930s until she died in 1968.
But publishing house Hodder confirmed in 2010 that Blyton’s works would be refreshed in order to make them ‘timeless’.
In January last year, Jacqueline Wilson gave The Magic Faraway Tree a rewrite to remove “sexist expectations” of female characters, with domestic chores for the girls replaced with a lesson on gender equality.
And in February, Blyton’s Famous Five and Malory Towers books saw words such as ‘brown’ with reference to tanned faces, ‘queer’ and ‘gay’ changed to bring them up to date.
A description of “a brown-faced fisher-boy” was changed to a “suntanned fisher-boy”, while “Where’s George? She wants spanking” became “She wants a good talking to”.
English Heritage released updated blue plaque information in 2021 saying Blyton’s booked had been linked to “racism and xenophobia”.
Examples of ‘racism’ within the books include 1966’s The Little Black Doll, in which the main character ‘Sambo’ is only accepted by his owner “once his ‘ugly black face’ is washed ‘clean’ by rain”, while in Noddy, ‘golliwogs’ were changed to ‘goblins’.
English Heritage also now cites that publisher Macmillan refused to publish The Mystery That Never Was over its “old-fashioned xenophobia” towards foreign characters.
Dr. Byrn Harris, legal counsel for the Free Speech Union told the Telegraph: “We are bemused by the decision to treat the author of Noddy as dangerous and subversive samizdat.”
Worth reading in full.
I wonder how long it will be before the trans lobby claims George in The Famous Five as the first trans character in children’s fiction and Blyton is rehabilitated?
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“Where’s George? She wants spanking” became “She wants a good talking to”.
I’d sooner have a good spanking! 🤣
This is not amusing. This is an unchecked outburst of BTNHIWHDI!-syndrome seeking to destroy whatever cultural heritage these people can lay their hands on as that’s their only calling in live: Bereft of anything resembling creativity, the seek to hide this deficiency but turning everything into something so lame that even they could have come up with it.
[*] A software terminus technicus I invented. It means But that’s not how I would have done it! and usually manifests itself as rewriting of perfectly functional code in order to conform to someone’s function-free aesthetic preferences or factually unjustified technical prejudices.
“Uncensored Enid Blyton Books Kept Under Counter in Public Libraries”
That is bloody funny.
Enid Blyton up before the censors!
I suppose it had to happen. I probably read every Enid Blyton book as a nipper and those books so damaged my psyche I ended up ….
…here at DS.
A die-hard, right-wing, fascist, anti-liberal.
“Red ink for Blyton. NOW!!!!”
Note that there are books now out on the shelves and available for youngsters that wouldn’t have been available anywhere in the 1950’s, let alone ‘under the counter’.
But publishing house Hodder confirmed in 2010 that Blyton’s works would be refreshed in order to make them ‘timeless’. In January last year, Jacqueline Wilson gave The Magic Faraway Tree a rewrite to remove “sexist expectations” of female characters, with domestic chores for the girls replaced with a lesson on gender equality. And in February, Blyton’s Famous Five and Malory Towers books saw words such as ‘brown’ with reference to tanned faces, ‘queer’ and ‘gay’ changed to bring them up to date. A description of “a brown-faced fisher-boy” was changed to a “suntanned fisher-boy”, while “Where’s George? She wants spanking” became “She wants a good talking to”. No, Jacqueline Wilson, these changes do not make Blyton’s book timeless, but very much of this time, and in years to come the work of the “sensitivity readers” may come to look excruciatingly early 21st century. I will say further that, just as there was a campaign to reclaim the cross of St. George from the far right, there now needs to be a campaign to reclaim the English language from the “far woke” and the psycho-babblers. I have related previously that I for one will refuse to use the euphemisms and made up words of these people (homophobe,… Read more »
Used consistently the censorious / falsifying / ‘offense’ precluding approach being applied here would lead to the red-pen removal of every reference to slave cargoes in 18th century British shipping manifestoes and their replacement with barrels of whisky and crates of oranges.
In other words like all other tyrannical ideologies and movements this one destroys itself from within its own logic.
The fact is that Enid Blyton created timeless good versus evil fables (ie relatively defenceless children – plus Timmy the dog! – up against knife and gun festooned adult ‘wrong-uns’) – and that fundamental spiritual truth massively outweighs any relatively trivial archaic views on skin colour or gender roles (and even there Ms Blyton was relatively enlightened and broad minded).
Attempts to alter history are as dangerous as / fail in exactly the same way that lies about the present do.
Enid Blyton was already banned from my school’s bookshelves when I started primary school in 1980. Enid Blyton is the reason I became an obsessive reader. I had an old suitcase I took from my grandparents’ loft that was full of my Mum’s and aunt’s childhood books. Most were Enid Blyton books. I blasted my way through the Secret Seven books, got in trouble for reading Famous Five books at the back of the classroom when I was seven. I loved the so-called ‘Barney Mysteries’, the ‘…of Adventure’ series, Mr Galliano’s Circus, and the Faraway Tree. My Mum used to go to a second hand book shop and pile me up with ever more Blyton books. I whooshed through them, often draining torch batteries as a result of reading under the bed clothes well into the night. I’ve still got many of those old hardbacks. Blyton presented a world where good children and adults were responsible, well-disciplined and moral. The stories were romances (in the sense of romanticism): good versus evil. Self-reliance, good manners, quick thinking and decency won the day. It’s everything the moral relativists and closet paedophiles who control the culture of the postmodern age loathe. It’s also… Read more »
Excellent post.
I remember when all the ‘naughty’ books were kept on the top shelf. 😏
Anyway, here’s my favourite Blyton-esque joke (and topical too).
Why has Gary Lineker got big ears?
Because Noddy won’t pay the ransom.
Ba-dum-tisss 🥁
🤣 🤣 🤣
The BBC would pay it for him!🤣🤣
May I suggest an ‘update’ to another book, far out of date in language and content, ‘Das Capital’..?
How about ‘Mien Kampf’
The thought of a sanitised and acceptable version of that book raises a smile. What a great challenge for a woke editor! I was going to suggest they have a do at de Sade, but chances are they’d find nothing that they wanted to change.
Here’s a challenge! “1984” censoring that book would be the biggest contradiction in terms ever!🤐
Doesn’t particularly fit in here (except that we absolutely can’t do without something anti-German for more than 5 minutes, can we?) but this has long since been done in Germany, namely, when the copyright of the original text expired and the so-called free state of Bavaria could no longer legally prevent other people from republishing it.
I regard those authors as nazis not germans. Germans are fine people!
The ultimate far out of date books are surely the Koran and the Bible (and other religious texts).
Deliberately destroying childhood
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Noddy has been in the firing line for decades, as I remember. The worst thing about the series is its goblinism.
I agree, Noddy doesn’t deserve all the years of goblinist hate speech he’s had to put up with!
And big ears! The amount of disgusting macrotism he had to suffer, well!
As a child I did not like Noddy because he did not say please and thankyou.
Anyone else see a similarity between the 1930s book burnings & public library censorship?
Farenheit 451 happening without the public flames.
Spot on BB.
Fahrenheit 451 didn’t anticipate digital books and the ability to hit ‘Delete’! The most terrible thing about the far left is that they can’t cope with the idea of something that has different views from them existing in the same world. It seems to cause them psychological trauma.
Very few titles, in percentage terms, are read 100 years after they were written. Should Sambo the Golliwog still feature in Noddy books.? Should every word, especially if they’ve fallen out of use, or changed in meaning like ‘queer’ be protected.?
I can see why people would suggest that, but this isn’t that. It is rewriting the books wholesale to change their meaning and message. I think people even as young as five can recognise that what happens in a story in a book isn’t real life. Knowing that ‘Sambo’ exists as a character in a book, but also knowing that you dont use the term for black people at school or in the street is a lesson in itself isn’t it.?