Enid Blyton

Enid Mary Blyton published her first collection of poems in 1922, then found her stride in the late 1930s with The Enchanted Wood and Adventures of the Wishing-Chair. What followed was industrial: she typed stories as they unfolded in her mind, unplanned, at a pace that spawned rumours of ghost writers she angrily denied. The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Noddy, Malory Towers - whole worlds poured out, translated into ninety languages. By the 1950s the backlash arrived: libraries banned her, the BBC refused to broadcast her, critics called the work elitist and outdated for post-war Britain. She kept writing, ran clubs that funneled young readers' energy into animal and children's charities, and left behind a body of work that has outlasted every objection. She died in 1968; the books sell still.