Can you help me find a particular edition of a novel I read?
May 17, 2019 11:57 AM Subscribe
I’m trying to find one particular printing of And Then There Were None I read decades ago (mine was called Ten Little Indians). I’ve browsed various copies of it at AbeBooks but I can’t find the exact one I read. I don’t know what websites or resources would help me find it. Can you point out where to look?
Response by poster: I don’t think so. I browsed that list awhile ago. Most of them were too new or too old. I read a paperback from the seventies or sixties.
posted by Monochrome at 12:02 PM on May 17, 2019
posted by Monochrome at 12:02 PM on May 17, 2019
Sorry, did that way too quickly and Goodreads only seems to be showing books with that title by other authors.
posted by acidnova at 12:06 PM on May 17, 2019
posted by acidnova at 12:06 PM on May 17, 2019
Best answer: The Wikipedia page suggests that "Ten Little Indians" was only used as a title by Pocket Books. Any of these covers look right?
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:24 PM on May 17, 2019
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:24 PM on May 17, 2019
Best answer: Note that the Pocket Books editions only used that title from 1964 to 1986, if that helps. (Ten Little Indians is actually a substitute for a far worse title, clearly giving publishers fits over the years.)
posted by praemunire at 1:04 PM on May 17, 2019
posted by praemunire at 1:04 PM on May 17, 2019
Best answer: Ten Little Indians, 31 editions at WorldCat.
(But the four published in the '80s are ineligible, and the oldest ones aren't paperback, so you'll winnow it down further.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:50 PM on May 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
(But the four published in the '80s are ineligible, and the oldest ones aren't paperback, so you'll winnow it down further.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:50 PM on May 17, 2019 [1 favorite]
In high school (early nineties) we mounted a production of the stage play version with that title and it still had the more offensive word in dialogue.
posted by mzurer at 6:19 AM on May 18, 2019
posted by mzurer at 6:19 AM on May 18, 2019
In a similar situation, I've search on Google images for something like "ten little indians" agatha christie book cover. If you see the correct cover, click through and you can often find more info like exact publication date and publisher and often ISBN.
One warning: I just checked the results for the google image search I suggested, and it include covers with the book's original title, which includes the n-word.
posted by yankeefog at 4:04 AM on May 19, 2019
One warning: I just checked the results for the google image search I suggested, and it include covers with the book's original title, which includes the n-word.
posted by yankeefog at 4:04 AM on May 19, 2019
Response by poster: OK so I think my memory was wrong but everyone got me the right answer anyway. And Then There Were None from 1973 looks familiar. Maybe "Previously published as Ten Little Indians" was on the title page and that stuck in my memory. It is a Pocket Books paperback, and another memory corroborates this: I remember red ink on the edges. Red stained edge treatments seem to be a Pocket Books trademark.
posted by Monochrome at 6:06 PM on May 19, 2019
posted by Monochrome at 6:06 PM on May 19, 2019
Response by poster: Beware: that Flickr link has NSFW pulp covers a few clicks away from the Agatha Christie cover.
posted by Monochrome at 6:13 PM on May 19, 2019
posted by Monochrome at 6:13 PM on May 19, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by acidnova at 11:59 AM on May 17, 2019