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Different titles?

tiggerhans 07 Apr 09 at 3:43 p.m. GMT

This week I bought several old books, some from the UK others from the USA.

I noticed titles I have never seen before and even don't fine them here. Can anyone tell me if for the American market some of the books got a different title to make them more accesable for the American market?Most of the books are small pocketsbooks from the 60-ies and 70-ies

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TheMole 01 May 09 at 7:21 p.m. GMT

Bowie

Hmm to be honest I'm kind of over posting on here since they removed my Your Murder Mystery Ideas thread a few days ago.

I hope you change your mind and stay and chat here, mon ami.

Tommy_A_Jones 01 May 09 at 2:53 p.m. GMT

I think there are legal reasons, if people get creative on here it is owned by the website which could put peoples backs up so to stop anger creativity is banned, on the last site people got creative and I think they were annoyed the site owned their Ideas

Bowie 01 May 09 at 10:46 a.m. GMT

Hmm to be honest I'm kind of over posting on here since they removed my Your Murder Mystery Ideas thread a few days ago. Not sure why, but I guess they don't really want us to be too creative. (I hardly imagine there would be an issue using Poirot's name on an AC website.)

So yeah I think I'll skip that, Mole.

TheMole 29 Apr 09 at 12:10 p.m. GMT

Anyone else? Maybe I should start a new topic about renaming titles.

Great idea! Please do, Bowie!

Bowie 27 Apr 09 at 2:33 p.m. GMT

Funnily enough, imho, her best named titles have never been altered, thankfully: Ordeal by Innocence, Sad Cypress, Nemesis, Evil Under the Sun and Curtain; and I actually prefer And Then There Were None to the original, Ten Little Niggers, from a purely linguistic point of view.

I wonder though what they could be changed to, such as Curtain (Poirot's Last Case)? Some ideas :P

The Mysterious Return to Styles

X

Aught in Malice (reference to Othello)

Anyone else? Maybe I should start a new topic about renaming titles.

JobyElliottMartin 10 Apr 09 at 5:40 p.m. GMT

tiggerhans

thanks all for your help. one of the reasons I needed to know is cause I am going to have an exhibition including international issues of her books, in Amsterdam

Wow! You must have a huge collection. Do you know how many books you have? Any different languages than English in your collection? I would love to know more about your exhibition. I hope you post about it. Thanks.

tiggerhans 10 Apr 09 at 3:46 p.m. GMT

thanks all for your help. one of the reasons I needed to know is cause I am going to have an exhibition including international issues of her books, in Amsterdam

Tommy_A_Jones 08 Apr 09 at 2:57 p.m. GMT

I like 1, 2 and 9 and 25 but I don't like the English or American Title for Murder is Easy, the phrase Murder is Easy is only used once or twice isn't it? not enough in my view for it to be the appropriate Title but I don't know what would be perhaps Murder Unsuspected?

JobyElliottMartin 08 Apr 09 at 10:55 a.m. GMT

Some titles were changed to make the books more appealing to the American market. Some titles have even changed three times.

Changed titles include:

1. The Sittaford Mystery - Murder at Hazelmoor
2. The 13 Problems - The Tuesday Club Murders
3. Lord Edgware Dies - 13 at Dinner
4. Why Didn't They Ask Evans - The Boomerang Clue
5. Murder on the Orient Express - Murder in the Calais Coach
6. Parker Pyne Investigates - Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective
7. Three - Act Tragedy - Murder in Three Acts
8. Death in the Clouds - Death in the Air
9. The ABC Murders - The Alphabet Murders
10. Dumb Witness - Poirot Loses a Client, Murder at Littlegreen House, Mystery at Littlegreen House
11. Murder in the Mews - Dead Man's Mirror
12. Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Murder for Christmas, A Holiday for Murder
13. Murder is Easy - Easy to Kill
14. And Then There Were None - Ten Little Indians, Ten Little Niggers
15. One, Two Buckle My Shoe - An Overdose of Death, The Patriotic Murders
16. Five Little Pigs - Murder in Retrospect
17. Towards Zero - Come and Be Hanged
18. Sparkling Cyanide - Remembered Death
19. The Hollow - Murder after Hours
20. Taken at the Flood - There is a Tide
21. Mrs. McGinty's Dead - Blood Will Tell, Murder Most Foul
22. They Do It with Mirrors - Murder with Mirrors
23. After the Funeral - Funerals are Fatal, Murder at the Gallop
24. Destination Unknown - So Many Steps to Death
25. Hickory, Dickory, Dock - Hickory, Dickory, Death
26. 4:50 from Paddington - What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!, Murder She Said
27. The Mirror Crack'd from side to side - The Mirror Crack'd

I found out, all of this info from, The Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie book. Look in Second hand book shops. It's where I got mine.

GKCfan 07 Apr 09 at 3:59 p.m. GMT

Yea, about a third of Christie's books were given different titles when they were published in the U.S.  The reasoning (not particularly logical, in my opinion) was that Americans wouldn't respond to titles that sounded too "British."  Check the list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Agatha_Christie for a nearly complete list- they miss a few.  Towards Zero was once dubbed "Come and be Hanged," and And Then There Were None became "The Nursery Rhyme Murders."