Enid Blyton joins JK Rowling, Dan Brown in Amazon’s best-selling authors list

LONDON - Late British writer of children’s novels Enid Blyton has been included in Amazon’s list of best-selling authors along with JK Rowling, Terry Pratchett and Dan Brown.

Though Blyton belongs to the past decade, her books however have remained as popular as ever, and her entry into the top 10 was based on sales at Amazon.co.uk, the online retailer.

Her stories, including the Famous Five and Noddy series, are still popular and bought by parents and grandparents who remember the books fondly from their own childhoods.

“Enid Blyton was a prolific author and many people who enjoyed her books as children will now be buying those books for children of their own,” the Telegraph quoted Amy Worth, head of books buying at Amazon.co.uk, as saying.

“It goes to show that great books never go out of fashion,” she added.

Blyton’s work is currently undergoing something of a revival, with a BBC drama chronicling her life and the Famous Five being reborn as a cartoon.

Documents released by the BBC archive last month revealed that she was banned from the corporation for nearly 30 years because executives thought her books lacked “literary value” and were no more than “competently written”.

However, the stories have sold more than 600 million copies worldwide.

Blyton died in 1968 and is one of only two dead authors on the Amazon list. The other is William Shakespeare.

Making the top of the list was Brit author Rowling with the Harry Potter books, and second was Stephenie Meyer, another female writer who created a literary phenomenon with the Twilight series.

Julia Donaldson, creator of ‘The Gruffalo’, was third, and Jamie Oliver, the only chef to make the list, came in fourth.

Dan Brown came in sixth with his book ‘The Da Vinci Code’, and Blyton came in seventh.

Other writers in the top 10 were Bernard Cornwell, author of the Sharpe novels, and Alexander McCall Smith, creator of the No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. (ANI)