Editing Enid Blyton (section)

==Death and legacy==
[[File:Blyton blue plaque.jpg|thumb|right|Blue plaque on Blyton's childhood home in Ondine Road, [[East Dulwich]], South London]]
During the months following her husband's death, Blyton became increasingly ill and moved into a nursing home three months before her death. She died in her sleep of [[Alzheimer's disease]] at the Greenways Nursing Home, Hampstead, north London, on 28 November 1968, aged 71. A memorial service was held at [[St James's Church, Piccadilly]]{{R|EBSChrono}} and she was cremated at [[Golders Green Crematorium]], where her ashes remain. Blyton's home, Green Hedges, was auctioned on 26 May 1971 and demolished in 1973;{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 117|ps=none}} the site is now occupied by houses and a street named Blyton Close. An [[English Heritage]] [[blue plaque]] commemorates Blyton at Hook Road in [[Chessington]], where she lived from 1920 to 1924.{{R|EngHet}} In 2014, a plaque recording her time as a Beaconsfield resident from 1938 until her death in 1968 was unveiled in the town hall gardens, next to small iron figures of Noddy and Big Ears.{{R|BeaconsfieldPlaque}}

Since her death and the publication of her daughter Imogen's 1989 autobiography, ''A Childhood at Green Hedges'', Blyton has emerged as an emotionally immature, unstable and often malicious figure.{{R|Telegraph09}} Imogen considered her mother to be "arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind, and without a trace of maternal instinct. As a child, I viewed her as a rather strict authority. As an adult I pitied her."{{R|Brandreth}} Blyton's eldest daughter Gillian remembered her rather differently however, as "a fair and loving mother, and a fascinating companion".{{R|Brandreth}}

The Enid Blyton Trust for Children was established in 1982, with Imogen as its first chairman,{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2910–2916|ps=none}} and in 1985 it established the National Library for the Handicapped Child.{{R|ODNB}} ''Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine'' began publication in September 1985, and on 14 October 1992, the BBC began publishing ''Noddy Magazine'' and released the Noddy CD-Rom in October 1996.{{R|EBSChrono}}

The first Enid Blyton Day was held at [[Rickmansworth]] on 6 March 1993, and in October 1996, the Enid Blyton award, The Enid, was given to those who have made outstanding contributions towards children.{{R|EBSChrono}} The [[Enid Blyton Society]] was formed in early 1995, to provide "a focal point for collectors and enthusiasts of Enid Blyton" through its thrice-annual ''Enid Blyton Society Journal'', its annual Enid Blyton Day and its website.{{R|Welcome}} On 16 December 1996, [[Channel 4]] broadcast a documentary about Blyton, ''Secret Lives''. To celebrate her centenary in 1997, exhibitions were put on at the London Toy & Model Museum (now closed), [[Hereford and Worcester County Museum]] and Bromley Library, and on 9 September the [[Royal Mail]] issued centenary stamps.{{R|EBSChrono}}

The London-based entertainment and retail company, Trocadero PLC, purchased Blyton's Darrell Waters Ltd in 1995 for £14.6&nbsp;million and established a subsidiary, Enid Blyton Ltd, to handle all intellectual properties, character brands and media in Blyton's works.{{R|EBSChrono}}{{R|ODNB}} The group changed its name to [[Chorion (company)|Chorion]] in 1998, but after financial difficulties in 2012, sold its assets. [[Hachette UK]] acquired from Chorion world rights in the Blyton estate in March 2013, including The Famous Five series{{R|Bookseller}} but excluding the rights to Noddy, which had been sold to [[DreamWorks Classics]] (formerly Classic Media, now a subsidiary of DreamWorks Animation){{R|HollywoodReporter}} in 2012.

Blyton's granddaughter, Sophie Smallwood, wrote a new Noddy book to celebrate the character's 60th birthday, 46 years after the last book was published; ''Noddy and the Farmyard Muddle'' (2009) was illustrated by Robert Tyndall.{{R|Noddys60th}} In February 2011, the manuscript of a previously unknown Blyton novel, ''Mr Tumpy's Caravan'', was discovered by the archivist at [[Seven Stories]], National Centre for Children's Books in a collection of papers belonging to Blyton's daughter Gillian, purchased by [[Seven Stories]] in 2010 following her death.{{R|StoryFound}}{{R|BBCTumpy}} It was initially thought to belong to a comic strip collection of the same name published in 1949, but it appears to be unrelated and is believed to be something written in the 1930s, which had been rejected by a publisher.{{R|BBCTumpy}}{{R|Unseen}}

In a 1982 survey of 10,000 eleven-year-old children, Blyton was voted their most popular writer.{{R|EBSChrono}} She is the [[list of most-translated individual authors|world's fourth most-translated author]], behind [[Agatha Christie]], [[Jules Verne]] and [[William Shakespeare]]{{R|UNESCOTranslation}} with her books being translated into 90 languages.{{R|Times2012}} From 2000 to 2010, Blyton was listed as a Top Ten author, selling almost 8 million copies (worth £31.2&nbsp;million) in the UK alone.{{R|MacArthur}} In 2003, ''[[The Magic Faraway Tree]]'' was voted 66th in the BBC's [[Big Read]], a year-long survey of the UK's best-loved novels.{{R|BigRead}} In a 2008 poll conducted by the Costa Book Awards, Blyton was voted the UK's best-loved author ahead of [[Roald Dahl]], [[J. K. Rowling]], [[Jane Austen]] and Shakespeare.{{R|MostLoved}}{{R|BestLoved}} Her books continue to be very popular among children in [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] nations such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malta, New Zealand and Australia, and around the world.{{R|SundayObserver}} They have also seen a surge of popularity in China, where they are "big with every generation".{{R|MM00}} In March 2004, Chorion and the Chinese publisher Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press negotiated an agreement over the Noddy franchise, which included bringing the character to an animated series on television, with a potential audience of a further 95 million children under the age of five.{{R|NoddyInChina}}{{R|Mirror}} Chorion spent around £10&nbsp;million digitising Noddy and, as of 2002, had made television agreements with at least 11 countries worldwide.{{R|Scotsman2002}}

Novelists influenced by Blyton include the crime writer [[Denise Danks]], whose fictional detective Georgina Powers is based on George from the Famous Five. [[Peter Hunt (literary critic)|Peter Hunt]]'s ''A Step off the Path'' (1985) is also influenced by the Famous Five, and the St. Clare's and Malory Towers series inspired [[Jacqueline Wilson]]'s ''Double Act'' (1996) and [[Adèle Geras]]'s Egerton Hall trilogy (1990–92) respectively.{{Sfnp|Rudd|2004|p=114|ps=none}} Blyton was important to [[Stieg Larsson]]. "The series Stieg Larsson most often mentioned were the Famous Five and the Adventure books".<ref>John-Henri Holmberg, "The Man Who Inhaled Crime Fiction," in Dan Burstein, Arne de Keijzer, and John Henri Holmberg (2011), ''The Tattooed Girl:  The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thrillers of Our Time'', New York:  St. Martin's Griffin, pp. 99–100.</ref>