The Faraway Tree

The first title of the main trilogy, The Enchanted Wood, was published in 1939, although the Faraway Tree and Moon-Face had already made a brief appearance in 1936 in The Yellow Fairy Book. A picture-strip book, Up the Faraway Tree, was published in 1951. Over the years, the Faraway Tree stories have been illustrated by various artists including Dorothy Wheeler, Rene Cloke, Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone, and Georgina Hargreaves.[1]

The main characters are Jo, Bessie and Fanny (updated in recent revisions to Joe, Beth and Frannie), who are three siblings. Fanny is the youngest, Bessie is next in age and Jo is their big brother. They live near the Enchanted Wood and are friends of the residents of the Faraway Tree. Other characters include:

• The Angry Pixie, who lives in a house with a tiny window and has a habit of throwing cold water or any liquid at hand over people who dare to peep inside;
• The barn owl, who lives in the house next to the Angry Pixie's. He is a friend of Silky's;
• Silky the fairy is so named because of her long, golden hair. She is one of the regular companions of the children when they go up the Tree to other worlds;
• Mr. Watzisname cannot remember his name. He sleeps and snores all the time. During a particular story at the Land of Secrets, Mr. Watzisname discovers his name, then forgets it almost immediately as it is so long;
• Dame Washalot, who spends her time washing her clothes and throwing the dirty wash-water down the tree. If she has no clothes to wash, she washes the dirty laundry of other people and even the leaves of the Faraway Tree;
• Moon-Face is so named for his round face that looks like the moon. His house is similarly round and is filled with curved furniture. He is the owner of the slippery-slip, a slide which starts in the middle of his house which lets you slide down to the bottom of the Faraway Tree instead of climbing down. It is used as a means of exiting the tree and has played an important part in some of the adventures, where others have sought control of the tree or their rooms;
• The Saucepan Man, who lives with Mr. Watzisname. His name stems from the fact that he is covered all over with saucepans and kettles. Sometimes, he cannot understand what his friends are saying because he is partially deaf, which is further aggravated by all the noise from the pans and kettles which he carries all the time. In the cartoon series, he looks very similar to Horace and Jasper from 1961 Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The Saucepan Man also appears in another lesser-known Blyton book, The Book of Brownies (aka Brownie Tales), helping the travellers out of one of their many bouts of trouble on their journey;
• The Saucepan Man's mother, who lives with Dame Washalot after The Folk of the Faraway Tree. She runs a cake shop;
• Dame Slap, who runs a school for bad pixies which, in some of the adventures, the friends accidentally land in. Her name has been updated in later revisions of the book to Dame Snap.

In modern reprints, the names of some of the characters have been changed. Jo has been changed to Joe, the more common spelling for males, and Bessie is now Beth, the former name having fallen out of usage as a nickname for Elizabeth. Fanny and Dick, whose names now carry unfortunate connotations, have been renamed Frannie and Rick. Dame Slap has become Dame Snap, and no longer practises corporal punishment but instead reprimands her students by shouting at them.

Entire passages of the original have been rewritten to remove references to fighting. For instance, when the tree is taken over by Goblins in The Enchanted Wood, the Goblins were originally fought off, with descriptions of Mr. Watzisname 'pummelling them as if he were beating carpets' and the Saucepan Man throwing his saucepans at them. These have been replaced with cursory references to 'chasing'.