ABSTRACT
In his book The Beauty of Inflections, Jerome McGann argues for the importance of ‘performative’ aspects of texts: ‘The price of a book, its place of publication, even its physical form and the institutional structures by which it is distributed and received, all bear upon the production of literary meaning, and hence all must be critically analyzed and explained.’1 He is dealing with works of recognised literary merit, but it can be argued that when we look at more popular literature, these ‘performative’ issues are of even greater importance. Blyton herself spoke openly of the significance of such material concerns: ‘I take a great interest in … the production and selling side of my job as well as in the creative side … I would not dream of having a book published unless I had co-operated in the production – advised on illustraions [sic], jacket, size of type, – yes, and on selling price and size of edition!’2 This is confirmed in her autobiography for children, The Story of My Life, in which she includes two fairly technical pages entitled, ‘How One of Your Books was Made’, commenting, ‘I and the publishers, the artist and the photographers, the printers and the binders, have all worked together as a team to make this book for you.’3 In this chapter I shall argue that much of Blyton’s success was due to her attention to these performative aspects of writing, and to the importance of a good team in achieving this. However, as we shall also see, Blyton – as Pied Piper – always called the tune.
