Richard Fattorini’s story about collection second editions (ATG No 2643).
Many authors, from Dickens to Conan Doyle, Wodehouse to Agatha Christie, had their works first published in magazines.
Many, if not all, were illustrated and these illustrations didn’t always appear in book form. Sometimes too, there were text changes between first appearance and first edition.
It was quite common for the book to be published at the same time as the final chapter appeared in the magazine, but ‘accidents’ did occur.
Eleven of Agatha Christie’s Twelve Labour’s of Hercules were first published in The Strand Magazine during 1939-40 but, thanks to the war, the book with the final chapter wasn’t published for another seven years, and that final chapter was never published in The Strand.
Geraldine Beare
