If you’re looking for a guide to becoming a successful and/or rich blogger, I’m afraid you are in the wrong place.

What this is, instead, is a sneak  peek at some of our best blogging resources. A lot of what we write just comes from our minds but I’m a stickler for facts so I do a lot of checking to make sure I have remembered something right.

In a rough order starting with the most used:

THE ENID BLYTON SOCIETY WEBSITE

This is literally a treasure trove of information. The magnificent Cave of Books has just about every book Blyton ever wrote (and many of the continuations) are listed here. It has front covers for just about everything – including many, many alternative covers from reprints.

It will tell you the date a book was published, who it was published by and who the illustrator was (often for each reprint in the main series too).

For the main series (and many others) there are reviews – which give away a lot of spoilers as they are often verging on critical analysis. I never read a review before I’ve written my own as I don’t want to be influenced but I often check afterwards to see if I’ve missed anything important.

There are also full internal illustrations for some series (The Famous Five even include the Betty Maxey ones from the 70s) so it really is a wealth of information.

There is also a biography of Enid Blyton and a timeline of her life and career which are very useful.

Then there are the vast forums – these contain a wealth of information too, as people have discussed books and TV episodes at length. New ideas are often sparked from here and it’s always interesting to get a range of opinions on a subject. The people there are also very friendly and will do their best to answer any queries that are posted. They get a lot of what is this book, I only remember what it looked like/one story from it and do a great job of finding the right one.

GOOD OLD GOOGLE

It’s amazing what Google will pull up sometimes. Sometimes nothing at all – but other times it can be very useful at finding random blog posts, threads with interesting points and newspaper articles. It’s also useful when trying to find information about some of the foreign editions.

ENID BLYTON.NET

Another dedicated Enid Blyton site which has reviews of the main series which I sometimes refer to. I sometimes forget a name or other small detail and often can spot it in a review rather than skimming  a whole book.

THE ENID BLYTON SOCIETY JOURNALS

I am a society member so I get three journals a year and have for several years (all for the bargain price of £10). I have also bought as many back issues as I can find. There isn’t an index as such but you can view each journal here in the catalogue (each one has a link which lists the contents), and they contain some great analysis of books, characters, TV series, Enid Blyton’s life and a lot more. It has had articles by Enid Blyton’s daughters and other leading authorities.

TONY SUMMERFIELD’S ILLUSTRATED BIBILOGRAPHIES

While the Cave is a great resource it does best on the main series and books. These bibliographies are split into part 1 – 1922-1942, part 2 – 1943-1952, part 3 – 1953-1962, and  part 4 – 1963-1974. The first one has sold out unfortunately but the other three are available in the Society Shop. I check these from time to time to confirm details of books if I can’t find them in the Cave.

FUNF FREUNDE FAN PAGE

This is a German site dedicated to the two Famous Five TV series. The majority of it has been translated into English and you will find brief episode guides which outline the differences between the two adaptations. There are also screen shots and other bits and pieces of interest.

IMDb

The Internet Movie Database has got a reasonable amount of information on the various TV series and movies based on Blyton’s work. It’s far from complete however, but it is useful for finding out the main cast of shows and rough air dates. There are some big errors though, with episodes of the Secret Series being listed as being from a unknown series (or season) of the Adventure Series for example.

DISSECTING THE MAGIC OF ENID BLYTON’S BOOKS BY LIAM MARTIN

Not quite what it sounds from the title – this is a great book which breaks the Famous Five books down into lots of categories including food, locations, nature and many others. I have written a separate post to explain more about it, so look out for it soon!

WIKIPEDIA

I have put this last as although it can be useful it is written by the general public and often full of errors. It also doesn’t have much in-depth information so I find most of the above resources are better. It can be useful for information on the foreign editions/adaptations however. Sometimes I have to view the German Wikipedia (.de) for example and get Google to translate it into half-legible English.

There are no doubt many other sites out there which could be useful – which is why I included Google as it’ll find them for you. There are also links pages on both Enidblyton.net and the Enid Blyton Society sites, listing some other sites of interest.