Did Enid Blyton pay other people for stories?

[canteatcustard]

My hubby has been doing a little research in to his families history and visited his 80yr old auntie, who told him that a relative used to be a local seamstress who liked to write children's stories as a hobby.
There were manuscripts which were left with another relative that has long since died.
However the rumour is that she wrote the stories and Blyton brought them from her.
any one else suggest how i can do further research?

Interesting idea, though I’d be surprised. Her books were so formulaic that she could bash them out really quickly. We recently read a Pamela Butchart ‘Secret Seven’ and whilst it was a competent attempt, my DD didn’t like it as much as actual Blyton Secret Sevens (I read it to her and didn’t tell her it was a different author).
Blyton may not be great literature, but she’s surprisingly difficult to copy convincingly.

Her second husband was Kenneth Darrell Waters and she named Darrell Rivers of the Malory Towers books after him. Not sure what's so odd about that?

There are some of her work diaries still in existence where she logged every book and story she wrote, who she sold them to/ had then published by and how much she was paid. Unfortunately a lot of them got destroyed towards the end of her life when she was very ill with dementia.

She did write under pen names (such as six titles by Mary Pollock) and as 'uncredited', I believe Audrey Saint Lo is another of her short story names as well.

She wrote everything for Sunny Stories before she stopped editing it and she wrote everything for Enid Blyton's Magazine too.

Very interesting theory. Don't think her being a prolific writer really backs it up though. It's very easy to churn out that kind of work and someone who is a talented writer can work at great speed once they have a formula worked out. As pp have said (hello Enid 👋🏻 ) I don't find it unbelievable that she'd be able to write them all herself.

Still interesting to ponder and to hear if other writers that have done so. cough Shakespeare cough

If = of

Again, the formulaic nature of the stories would be as much evidence for them being subcontracted as it is for her writing them herself! Fair enough if there are diaries though.

Shakespeare just retold the tales for the most part, well, I'll grant him.

True LaD. It is easy to write loads though. Once a writer is on the zone it pours out.

It wouldn't surprise me if a team of people were writing David Williams' books - they seem to appear in the shops by the minutes!