by Paul Edmund Norman

The subtle difference between Enid Blyton and J K Rowling is not down to the number of copies of their books that have been sold, but their comparative diversity. Rowling may have brought children back to reading, but Blyton was responsible, during the latter half of the twentieth century, for the overall entertainment of the vast majority of British children. Let me qualify that.

Life in post-war Britain was austere for the best part of ten years. Food was rationed until 1953, the BBC's television service, which had started in 1936 but was suspended during the war years, was broadcasting a service that started around four in the afternoon and consisted mainly of imported US programmes such as The Lone Ranger, the home-made Adventures of Robin Hood and a variety of dreadful variety shows in grainy black and white on 9-inch sets set in vast wooden cabinets; children's entertainment comprised the frequent, sometimes twice-weekly visit to the pictures to see two full-length feature films interspersed with a half-hour of cartoons and a Look at Life documentary plus advertisements, weekly comics, of which there were plenty, and reading.

There was a Children's Hour on the BBC Radio Home Programme, often consisting of a serial by someone like Angus McVicar, or Jennings and Darbyshire's school adventures, but to stay up to listen to the radio after Children's Hour was considered a treat for anyone aged eleven or under. If you were a teenager, you got to listen to Radio Luxembourg, and The Goon Show, and maybe some of the adult radio serials, The Navy Lark, Educating Archie, Take it from Here and Have A Go. After school, you got to kick a ball about in the playing fields with your friends (mates hadn't been invented) but you were home before it got dark, by six during the summer months, and inevitably ended up in bed with your favourite book.

I have no statistics to back up what I'm about to say. All I know is what I've read, in books and studies. In 2005 the UK's YouGov conducted research that confirmed ENID BLYTON as the best-selling and most-loved children's author of the twentieth century. You could argue that the twentieth century precludes J K Rowling, as the last few Harry Potters were written during this century, and that a survey that encompassed the last sixty years might give a different result. In terms of sales, Blyton still sells in the region of ten million copies a year, most of those sales generated by THE FAMOUS FIVE. It's a distinct possibility that J K Rowling has now superseded Enid in terms of pure sales.

What is a fact is that the web has a multitude of articles and debates all discussing the question of which of the two writers is better. Most people seem to think it's a pointless exercise. Some people who are Blyton-o-philes, want the debate settled (in their favour) so they can sit back and say "I told you so, Enid is better," whilst Rowling-ites want the opposite for the same reason. What follows is purely my own opinion. I haven't canvassed anyone, though I have read the debates, particularly the more recent comments on the Enid Blyton Society Forum.

In my opinion, writers are influenced by the times in which they write. You won't find anyone writing Shakespearean English now, in the twenty-first century, except maybe in works of fantasy. The same goes for authors such as Jane Austen, the Brontes, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, all stalwarts and best-sellers of their century and each writing in the style that was perfected during that century. The twentieth century saw modernism in painting, music, and literature. Whilst I have a preference for traditional (or classical) painting, music and literature, I can safely say that I am aware of what those people indulging in modernism thought they were bringing to their genres. I am aware that Picasso turned out some really beautiful paintings before he went down the LSD route and started to turn out hideous paintings of things that don't resemble anything on this Earth. You may glean from this that I am not a fan of abstract art - I believe it is simply an excuse for a lack of talent.

At this point I'm tempted to say that comparing Enid Blyton with J K Rowling is like trying to compare Michaelangelo or Boris Vallejo (both of whom paint people that look like people) with Picasso, but I'd be doing J K Rowling a huge disservice by saying that, because Harry Potter is terrifically readable in a way that Picasso's paintings are, for me, unapproachable, so I'm not going to say it. Whilst my favourite composer, Gustav Mahler, wrote his awesome eighth symphony in the early years of the twentieth century, people like Stockhausen, Berg, Boulez and so on were introducing modernism into what they called music with, in most cases, hideous atonality.

Atonality does, of course, work. Mahler's ninth and tenth symphonies flirted with it and it worked, gloriously. Georgi Ligeti's Lontano brought 2001: A Space Odyssey to life as the apes came face to face with the obelisk. Benjamin Britten used atonality in many of his major works and it works. But those composers who took modernism too far ended up with pieces that are, to me, just noise, in the same way that much modern "pop" music is just noise. Give me the harmony and rhythms of the Beatles, ELO, Freiheit, Harry Nilsson, Status Quo etc,. any day. In literature, many twentieth century authors sought to introduce modernity, and the results, for me, are largely unreadable.

While D H Lawrence was writing the most beautiful prose of the twentieth century, people like James Joyce and Samuel Beckett were writing stuff I simply can't get on with. But all of these trends were taking place within the context of the twentieth century. Artists, composers, and authors were creating their oeuvres within the context of the time in which they lived. It's easy to work out that composers like Vaughan Williams and Holst were describing events of the first world war in their work, just as Shostakovich, probably the Shakespeare of the music world, lays out all the horrors of the second world war and the worst excesses of communism in his fifth and seventh symphonies.

The bulk of Enid Blyton's writing, at least, her commercial writing, falls in the years immediately following the second world war, when, as I've already pointed out, life was hard, but there was a feel-good factor as things slowly started to return to normal. Against this backdrop, Blyton saw the need for escapist adventure stories for children of all ages; for the very young and toddlers, there were fairies, pixies and brownies and, of course, Little Noddy; for pre-teens there were the Secret Seven, and for teens there were the Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers, the Barney Mysteries and, of course, the school stories. The language she used in those books is typical of the way people of the upper-middle and upper classes would have used, and something we working class children aspired to, because in those days everyone still looked up to the ruling classes and aspiration was the order of the day.

That she wrote to a formula has never been in much doubt. Developing the formula into the astounding success she achieved was nothing short of miraculous. She saw a need and fulfilled it, just as Edgar Rice Burroughs had done forty years earlier. Several hundred million copies later, and people still buy her books all over the world. She is listed amongst the ten most influential writers of the twentieth century, alongside people such as Agatha Christie, Shakespeare, and Stephen King. Her success is legendary. Her diversity is on a scale quite unlike any other author's apart from, maybe, Shakespeare, yet even he wrote only drama and poetry. Enid Blyton wrote in a wide variety of genres, adventure, mystery, fantasy, school, contemporary kitchen-sink (Those Dreadful Children), Bible stories, nature - the list is pretty much endless.

So how could you possibly even think about comparing her with J K Rowling, the "other" phenomenally successful children's author, and what would it achieve? We have no way of knowing what, other than the Harry Potter saga, J K Rowling has written, as it is only the Potter books that have been published. Since Harry Potter, her only "published" work is a limited edition (seven copies only) of handwritten fairy tales, six of which are intended for people most closely associated with Harry Potter, and the seventh to be auctioned for her charity. That does not mean to say that she is not capable of turning her hand to other genres of writing. Many modern writers write both for children and for adults - Joanne Harris and Jack Higgins are prime examples.

It may be that J K Rowling's next mass market writing is for adults, or, if for children, far removed from the fantasy world of Hogwarts. Until then, it is simply not possible to compare the two writers with a view to proclaiming one better than the other. And what would be the point of comparing them if not to decide who was better? I don't know. I only know that the seven Harry Potter books have given me enormous pleasure. I bought the last three on the day of publication, having previously "caught up". But next to my bed is a cabinet containing the six "R" Barney mysteries, and I occasionally read them for one of two reasons. Firstly, to remind me of a time, now sadly gone by. Secondly, because I love the way Enid Blyton wrote. I do, also, love the way J K Rowling has managed to write in a way that almost emulates the modern cinematic way of telling a story - her prose is very visual indeed. I honestly don't think it's possible to compare them as writers, and to try to measure them against each other on sales figures alone doesn't achieve anything. In summary, I can't see why anyone would want or need to compare Enid Blyton with J K Rowling - they both have their unique places in children's literature, and that should be an end to it. If anyone reading this has a different view, please feel free to e-mail it in and I'll gladly publish it. If you're interested in an ongoing debate on such comparisons, why not join the excellent Enid Blyton Society and take part in the forum?