The Dark Side Of Your Favorite Children's Authors

The one time the creator of Little Grey Rabbit, Alison Uttley, met Enid Blyton, she hated her. It may be because she recognized a kindred spirit. While Blyton was an insecure, spiteful bully, Uttley was a basketcase of seething paranoia, endless loathing, and an envy that burned so bright you could melt steel with it.

The one time the creator of Little Grey Rabbit, Alison Uttley, met Enid Blyton, she hated her. It may be because she recognized a kindred spirit. While Blyton was an insecure, spiteful bully, Uttley was a basketcase of seething paranoia, endless loathing, and an envy that burned so bright you could melt steel with it. An Independent article, relying heavily on Uttley's own journals, tells the tale.

For one thing, she hated other successful women. While successful men were charming or intelligent, successful women were "humorless bores," "vulgar," and untalented. Part of this may have been due to her insane need to keep proving she was better than others. Whenever Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter was mentioned, Uttley would declare Potter was a mere illustrator, while she herself was a great "spinner of tales." Despite living near Enid Blyton, she went out of her way to avoid her (possibly with good reason, given what we've learned about Mrs. Blyton just a few paragraphs ago). No matter how famous she got, she was never content.

Her home life was pretty messy, too. Her biographer, Professor Denis Judd, claimed she was a domineering control-freak, and when it came to her only son, John, she couldn't simply let him be. The two developed such an unhealthily close relationship that after Uttley died in 1976 John committed suicide by driving his car off a cliff. It seems life with a mother like Uttley had left him completely ill-equipped to deal with a world without her. Who'd want to have a children's author as a parent, huh?  

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