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Despite enjoying the stories in childhood, as an adult, the writer Anne Fine ignored Blyton's work, in part because of the drip drip of disapproval that has accompanied her books for many decades. But, going back to her battered old Blytons, she realised exactly why she had found the books so captivating - they are remarkably good reads - real page turners.

Anne Fine does not deny that Blyton is the creator of creaking plots, cardboard characters who often used non pc language. An author of jolly adventures, in which the most enormous amounts of food and drink are consumed by children who never put on weight. And yet her books have outsold all other children's authors. In 2008, Blyton was voted the UK's best-loved writer. Her work has been translated into 40 different languages and she's sold over 500 million books worldwide.

Includes extracts from a rare interview with her only surviving daughter, Imogen Smallwood, and contributions from her biographer, Barbara Stoney, as well as the UK's leading Blyton scholar, Dr David Rudd [Professor of Children's literature at Bolton University] - there are also archive recordings of Enid herself, her elder daughter Gillian Baverstock and her brother Hanley who explains how the siblings comforted each other during parental rows.

Reader Miriam Margolyes

Producer: Helen Lee

First broadcast on 麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 4 in November 2008.