I was lucky enough to receive quite a few Blyton-y presents between my birthday and Christmas this year, so I thought I’d do a wee blog to show off what I got!

My shiny new presents

For my birthday I got the Famous Five Annual from my cousin, something I’ve been aware of and wanting for a long time (we were discussing it on the Enid Blyton Society Forums long before it came out,) but I wasn’t really desperate enough to pay the cover price for it when I knew it would go down later. I’ve not really had a chance to read it yet, but I love the Eileen Soper cover and I’ve flicked through the contents already and they look really interesting.

The Famous Five Annual, 2014

The other thing I got for my birthday was this Blyton print, as a little surprise from my parents. I just need to find a bit of space on my poster-covered walls to put it up now!

Enid Blyton print

Then for my Christmas, I got even more!

My boyfriend (after some careful instructions and a little pleading) bought me the Famous Five Card Game from 1951, and Father Christmas and Belinda.

The card game isn’t in the best condition, the box is scuffed, the instructions are missing as are two of the six “all safe” cards, but I’m happy with it as they’re quite hard to find unless you’re willing to pay the best part of £50 for them. All the cards are based on Eileen Soper’s illustrations and I can read the instructions in the Cave of Books (gosh they look complicated though!)

Pepys card game

Father Christmas and Belinda will complete the series for me, as I already have the other book – Humpty Dumpty and Belinda which I reviewed earlier in the year.

Father Christmas and Belinda

As a little surprise, I also got this bookmark in my stocking (I was really confused as I tried to work out what it was while it was still wrapped.) I’m awful for not using bookmarks actually, so I waste a lot of time trying to figure out where I’m at when I reopen a book (that or I use receipts and scraps of paper to keep my place.)

Blyton bookmark

And finally, I got all four of the Enid Blyton Illustrated Bibliographies by Tony Summerfield. Two were from my parents and two were from my boyfriend (they obviously worked that out between them somehow after I put them on my list!)

Illustrated Bibliographies

I’ve been drooling over these for years but couldn’t quite justify the best part of £80 for them. I actually (and possibly foolishly) expected them to be journal-sized, but in reality they’re much bulkier (between 200 and 230 pages each), and I look forward to dipping into them when I’m looking for information about editions of the books.

So, not including the fourteen other books I got for Christmas, and the eight others for my birthday, (and let’s not mention the DVD, jewellery and miscellaneous other gifts) I was well and truly spoiled this year. I’m looking forward to sitting down with all these things to examine them more closely, and I think I’ve got enough reading material to last me a good few months now, which is always good. I’ll most likely review a lot of these gifts at some point, so stay tuned!

Did anyone else get any great Blyton presents this Christmas?