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Original Titles

Just as DW diligently drafted and then re-drafted his novels to give the most dramatic effect, so he also sometimes changed the titles. These are the title changes that we know about:

Title Date first published Title(s) in Draft
Three Inquisitive People 1939/40* The Crime in Curzon Street
Who Killed Lady Shoesmith?
Such Power is Dangerous 1933 The Film War
The Devil Rides Out 1934 The Talisman of Evil
They Found Atlantis 1936 The Forgotten Land
Murder Off Miami 1936 He Craved Adventure
Uncharted Seas 1938** Ship Wreck
Blue Murder
The Quest of Julian Day 1939 The Accursed Quest
Sixty Days to Live 1939 Thirty Days to Live
Those Modern Musketeers 1939 Four Audacious People
The Scarlet Impostor 1940 Secret Agent No. I
Lone Wolf
Darkness Is My Friend
The Black Baroness 1940 The Cat Among The Rats
Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts 1943 The Mixture as Before
Tip up the Bottle
A Good Time Was Had By Nearly All
The Haunting of Toby Jugg 1948 The Devil's New Disguise
(and the main character's name was originally to be Adrian Chance)
The Second Seal 1950 Swansong in Vienna
Star of Ill Omen 1952 World Far From Here
To the Devil a Daughter 1953 The Christina of the Dark Hours
Curtain of Fear 1953 Unquiet Weekend
The Desperate Weekend
A Grim Weekend
The Island Where Time Stands Still 1954 The Mysterious Island
The Dark Secret Of Josephine 1955 The Secret Marriage
The Ka of Gifford Hillary 1956 The Man Who Came Back
The Prisoner in the Mask 1957 The Man in the Locked Mask
The Man in the Metal Mask
Stranger than Fiction 1959 Dennis Wheatley's War Papers
The Rape of Venice 1959 Venetian Vengeance
The Bridge of Lies
The Sinister Venetian
The Satanist 1960 The Destroyer
Saturdays with Bricks 1961 The Saturday Afternoon Builder
Vendetta in Spain 1961 A Vendetta in Spain
The Assassins
Death to the Spanish Anarchists
They Used Dark Forces 1964 The Devil's Disciple
The Devil's Spawn
Evil In A Mask 1969 Enter the Nymphomaniac
The Nymphomaniac
The Bewitching Nymphomaniac
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware 1971 The Forwardness of Lady Mary Ware
Desperate Measures 1974 The Demon Wife
Of Love And Death
The Young Man Said 1977 The Naughty Boy
Intermediate volume of autobiography ? The Wine Merchant and Author Said
Later volume of autobiography ? The Sky's the Limit
The Deception Planners 1980 Secrets of the War Cabinet
Final volume of autobiography ? The Old Man Said


*Written before The Forbidden Territory, but first published in an Omnibus in 1939, and first published as a stand-alone novel in 1940.


** Serialised as Blue Murder in the Daily Mail in 1937, but published in book form as Uncharted Seas in 1938.





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Copyright © 2002-2006 Bob Rothwell. 2007-2024 Charles Beck.
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