Three of Blyton’s major series for older children – the “Secret” series, the “Famous Five” series and the “Adventure” series begin with an island novel; Blyton followed many literary predecessors in recognising how compelling islands settings are in children’s novels. Hers are privileged, isolated, enchanted microcosms outside adult control, in which children can exert their agency by having adventures and solving mysteries, to be finally rewarded by the admiration of grown-ups. Kirrin Island, the most famous, has topographical features associated with ideal adventure islands – a rocky coast, a quiet inlet, a wrecked ship and a ruined castle complete with dungeons. And, in Five on a Treasure Island, villains against whom it has to be defended. The island, as David Rudd pointed out, is a metonym for the nation: George defending “her” island mirrors England defending her territories during the Second World War at the actual time the novel was written.
There are two interconnected strands of interest that this lecture will follow. One is how Kirrin Island can be read in relation to the larger island which is its mainland, a relationship brought into focus by the recent Blyton parody Five on Brexit Island by Bruno Vincent that, as a mise en abyme of the Brexit referendum, has an older George declaring Kirrin Island’s independence from Great Britain. This strand probes Blyton’s mythical Englishness and its place in the national narrative surrounding Brexit. The second engages with responses of what Margret Mackey has called “outsiders”, i.e. non-English readers, to the Englishness of the books and Kirrin Island, looking especially at how the island is reimagined by translators and illustrators.