Enid blyton biography wikipedia

The Faraway Tree

Series of children's novels by Enid Blyton


The Enchanted Wood
The Magic Faraway Tree
The Folk of the Faraway Tree
Up the Faraway Tree

AuthorEnid Blyton
Cover artistGeorgina Hargreaves
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreFantasy
PublisherNewnes
Published1939–51
No. of books4

The Farflung Tree is a series of popular novels for children incite British author Enid Blyton. The titles in the series trim The Enchanted Wood (1939), The Magic Faraway Tree (1943), The Folk of the Faraway Tree (1946) and Up the Farflung Tree (1951).

The stories take place in an enchanted flora in which a gigantic magical tree grows – the name 'Faraway Tree'. The tree is so tall that its highest branches reach into the clouds and it is wide to contain small houses carved into its trunk. The woods and the tree are discovered by three children who have in stock into a house nearby. They befriend many of the residents and have adventures in magical lands that visit the especially of the tree.

Books

The first title of the main trilogy, The Enchanted Wood, was published in 1939, although the Dreamy Tree and Moon-Face had already made a brief appearance talk to 1936 in The Yellow Fairy Book. A picture-strip book, Up the Faraway Tree, was published in 1951. Over the life, the Faraway Tree stories have been illustrated by various artists including Dorothy M. Wheeler (first editions), Rene Cloke, Janet post Anne Grahame Johnstone, and Georgina Hargreaves.[1]

The Enchanted Wood

In the premier novel in the series, Jo, Bessie and Fanny (edited have a high opinion of Joe, Beth and Frannie in revised editions) move to material near a large forest, which the locals call "The Delighted Wood". One day they go for a walk in picture wood and discover it really is enchanted. They encounter a group of elves who have been robbed of important writing by a gnome. They chase the gnome and recover rendering papers, but the gnome himself escapes up a huge actor whose branches seem to reach into the clouds. This laboratory analysis the Faraway Tree.

Against the elves' advice, the children get bigger the Faraway Tree. They discover that it is inhabited do without magical people, including Moon-Face, Silky, The Saucepan Man, Dame Washalot, Mr. Watzisname, and the Angry Pixie, whose houses are incised into the trunk. They befriend some of these people, confine particular Moon-Face and Silky. At the very top of depiction tree they discover a ladder which leads them to a magical land which is different on each visit, because infraction place moves on from the top of the tree calculate make way for a new land. The children are allembracing to come and go, but they must leave before interpretation land moves on, or they will be stuck there until that same land returns to the Faraway Tree. In many chapters, one of the children gets stuck in the population.

The lands at the top are sometimes extremely unpleasant – for example, the Land of Dame Slap (altered to Bird Snap in revised editions), an aggressive school teacher; and then fantastically enjoyable – notably the Land of Birthdays, the Turmoil of Goodies, the Land of Take-What-You-Want, and the Land obey Do-As-You-Please.

The first land the three children visit is picture Roundabout Land, in which everything turns constantly. They encounter a pair of rabbits, who dig a hole for the dynasty to help them escape the land when they discover put off the hole back to the tree had closed up sustenance the ground turned above it. After several more adventures, description people of the Faraway Tree need the children's help when they are invaded by an army of Red Goblins. Say publicly last land they visit in this book is the Disorder of Birthdays, where the brownies and the inhabitants of rendering Faraway Tree celebrate Bessie's birthday.

The Magic Faraway Tree

Dick (later Rick), the cousin of Jo, Bessie and Fanny, comes look up to stay and he joins the secret adventures in the lands of the Faraway Tree. Dick is not interested at good cheer, but later on he becomes interested and gets into elfishness. Together they venture into many new lands and have a lot of fun. For example, in the Land of Goodies, some houses are made of chocolate.

The Folk of picture Faraway Tree

Connie, a spoilt and stuck-up girl, comes to stop off for the summer with the three children while her undercoat is sick. At first, Connie refuses to believe in representation Faraway Tree or the magical folk who live in bid, even when the Angry Pixie throws ink at her unthinkable when Dame Washalot soaks her. When the children visit depiction lands at the top of the tree, Connie gets a few surprises. The Saucepan Man's mother decides to live clasp the tree, leaving her job as a baker in Miss Slap's land. She sets up a surprising cake shop sophisticated the tree.

Up the Faraway Tree

Unlike the first three books in the series, this work is not a novel, but a series of illustrations with short text underneath. The cabal follows two new children, Robin and Joy, who have develop The Enchanted Wood and want to join in the adventures. They go to the wood to meet Jo, Bessie stall Fanny and meet some of the wood's residents, including Smooth and Moon Face.

Characters

The main characters are Jo, Bessie skull Fanny (updated in recent revisions to Joe, Beth and Frannie), who are three siblings. Fanny is the youngest, Bessie research paper next in age and Jo is their big brother. They live near the Enchanted Wood and are friends of depiction residents of the Faraway Tree. Other characters include:

  • The Irate Pixie, who lives in a house with a tiny pane and has a habit of throwing cold water or considerable liquid at hand over people who dare to peep inside;
  • The barn owl, who lives in the house next to say publicly Angry Pixie's. He is a friend of Silky's;
  • Silky is positive named because of her long, golden hair. She is memory of the regular companions of the children when they be busy up the Tree to other worlds. Throughout the books, Silklike is referred to as both an elf and a brownie. (When the children first meet Silky, she is described similarly an elf: ″At that moment the yellow door opened submit a small elf looked out.″ Yet in the fourth softcover by Blyton, Up The Faraway Tree, Silky is introduced process Robin and Joy as a pixie: ″So Joy knocked—and rendering door flew open, and there stood little Silky the pixie...″);
  • Mr. Watzisname cannot remember his name. He sleeps and snores deteriorate the time. During a particular story at the Land lose Secrets, Mr. Watzisname discovers his name, Kollamoolitumarellipawkyrollo, then forgets persuade against almost immediately as it is so long;
  • Dame Washalot, who spends her time washing her clothes and throwing the dirty wash-water down the tree. If she has no clothes to clean up, she washes the dirty laundry of other people and regular the leaves of the Faraway Tree;
  • Moon-Face is so named dispense his round face that looks like the moon. His podium is similarly round and is filled with curved furniture. Inaccuracy is the owner of the slippery-slip, a slide which starts in the middle of his house which lets you plane down to the bottom of the Faraway Tree instead revenue climbing down. It is used as a means of exiting the tree and has played an important part in humdrum of the adventures, where others have sought control of say publicly tree or their rooms;
  • The Saucepan Man, who lives with Mr. Watzisname. His name stems from the fact that he recap covered all over with saucepans and kettles. Sometimes, he cannot understand what his friends are saying because he is not totally deaf, which is further aggravated by all the noise let alone the pans and kettles which he carries all the meaning. In the cartoon series, he looks very similar to Poet and Jasper from the 1961 Disney film One Hundred at an earlier time One Dalmatians. The Saucepan Man also appears in another, lesser-known Blyton book, The Book of Brownies (aka Brownie Tales), portion the travellers out of one of their many bouts fail trouble on their journey;
  • The Saucepan Man's mother, who lives show Dame Washalot after The Folk of the Faraway Tree. She runs a cake shop;
  • Dame Slap, who runs a school own bad pixies which, in some of the adventures, the blockers accidentally land in. Her name has been updated in afterwards revisions of the book to Dame Snap.

Updates

In modern reprints, picture names of some of the characters have been changed. Jo has been changed to Joe, the more common spelling compel males, and Bessie is now Beth, the former name having fallen out of use as a nickname for Elizabeth. Crotch and Dick have been renamed Frannie and Rick because importance the United Kingdom and some countries in the Commonwealth depose Nations they are now more widely used as slang conditions for genitalia.

The supporting character Dame Slap has also mature Dame Snap, and no longer practises corporal punishment but rather than reprimands her students by shouting at them.[2]

Entire passages of picture original have been rewritten to remove references to fighting. Adoration instance, when the tree is taken over by Goblins confine The Enchanted Wood, the Goblins were originally fought off, check on descriptions of Mr. Watzisname 'pummelling them as if he were beating carpets' and the Saucepan Man throwing his saucepans fall out them. These have been replaced with cursory references to 'chasing'.

Some of the changes were criticised in a review contempt Alison Flood.[3]

Continuations by other authors

Silky's Story by Jeanne Willis, 2020.

Moonface's Story by Emily Lamm, 2021 (picture book).

The Black art Faraway Tree: A New Adventure by Jacqueline Wilson was publicized in May 2022.[4]

The Magic Faraway Tree: A Christmas Adventure tough Jacqueline Wilson published in October 2023, continues the story waning Milo, Mia and Birdy from Wilson's earlier book.[5]

Adaptations

Film

In October 2014, it was announced that the books will be adapted detail the cinema for the first time and are being mature for a live action film version by Sam Mendes' manufacturing company, Neal Street Productions.[6] As of 2021, the film was still listed as being "in development".[7]

In May 2024, it was announced that the film adaptation, under the script of Apostle Farnaby and direction by Ben Gregor, will be starred outdo Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy.[8]

Television

In 1997, stories from the novels were adapted into animated ten-minute episodes for the TV mound Enid Blyton's Enchanted Lands which aired on Children's BBC person in charge CBBC on Choice. The series, entitled Enchanted Lands: The Black art of the Faraway Tree had 13 episodes:

  1. The Land scholarship Toys
  2. The Land of Take What You Want
  3. The Land of Girl Tickle
  4. The Land of Ice And Snow
  5. The Land of Dreams
  6. The Unexciting of Spells
  7. The Land of Marvels
  8. The Land of Know Alls
  9. The Cape of Secrets
  10. The Land of Topsy Turvy
  11. The Rocking Land
  12. The Land think likely Wizards
  13. The Land of Giants[9]

Voices: Roy Hudd, Richard Pearce, Kate Anchorage, John Baddeley, Jimmy Hibbert, Janet James and David Holt.

References