Eileen Gibb

Eileen Gibb was the author of a series of books featuring 'The Adventures of Sammy the Shunter' which were published by Ian Allan in a small, oblong format similar to the railway stories of the Reverend W. Awdry, whose 'Thomas the Tank Engine' the series closely resembled. The stories were still being reprinted in the 1970s.

Their author was Eileen Holder, born Eileen Mabel Gibb in Croydon, Surrey, on 3 August 1911, the daughter of Benjamin Gibb and his wife Mabel. During the Second World War, she was secretary to Sir Kenneth Clark, where she met and became friends with many eminent artists, including Henry Moore, Stanley Spencer and writers such as Philip Larkin.

Eileen married John Terrance Holder in 1942 and had two children after the war. John (1905-1987) worked on the small gauge Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway, which remains a hugely popular tourist attraction in Kent. running between Hythe and Dungeness. He was the son of a brewer and engineer John Alexander Holder (1856-1957) who had a passion for trains and built a miniature railway at his home at Broom House, Broom, near Stourbridge, Worcestershire, which included a bridge that took that railway across a lake.

After the Great War, "Captain Jack" (as he was known), moved to Keeping House in Beaulieu, Hampshire, taking the miniature railway and the bridge with him. Queen Mary and King George V were filmed taking a ride on a miniature railway at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924 to show that they were "one of the people", and shots of John Holder driving the train are often shown in programmes about the royal couple. (A brief, silent [but rather noisy!] British Pathe film with a clip is available on YouTube.)

The family were living in Cobham, Surrey, in the 1950s when the Sammy stories were written. John Holder worked for Ian Allen, who began publishing books on transport—and railways in particular—in 1942. "I think this exposure to so much railway stuff must have fired mum's imagination to produce her stories," recalls Eileen's daughter.

For Robin, Eileen Gibb wrote stories featuring a new character called 'Tubby the Odd-Job Engine' which starred another Thomas look-alike. The series, launched in the first issue (28 March 1954) was illustrated for many years by Arthur W. Baldwin who had been associated with the Sammy the Shunter books. After a year or so, the short Tubby yarns began alternating with other characters ('Tracey the Tug Boat', 'Basil Bus Stop', etc.) but continued to appear until volume 14 (1966) when the series took on a wider focus and became 'Honeytown Tales', still featuring Tubby but also giving more space to other inhabitants of Honeytown.

I've yet to establish when the series ended but it was probably around the time that Robin folded in 1969. The few records that remain relating to Robin indicate that these later stories, published in the 1960s, were by actor Donald Bissett.

But what of Eileen Gibb? She made a number of contributions to Robin Annual (3-8, 1955-60) but beyond that seems to have given up writing in the early- to mid-1960s. After her writing finished she engaged her creativity in many different forms, including woodworking, pottery and painting. She was an artist in one form or another until her final stroke. She died in 2003, aged 92.

Books
The Adventures of Sammy the Shunter:
    1 Sammy Gets Streamlined. London, Ian Allan, Dec 1949.
    2 Sammy Goes to the Circus. London, Ian Allan, Sep 1950.
    3 Sammy Goes to Sea. 1951?
    4 Sammy Goes to America. London, Ian Allan, Nov 1951.
    5 Sammy Goes to Fairyland. London, Ian Allan, Aug 1952.
    6 Sammy Meets Father Christmas, illus. Arthur W. Baldwin. London, Ian Allan, Nov 1952.
    7 Sammy and the Old Engines. London, Ian Allan, Jun 1954.
    8 Sammy Joins the Scouts. London, Ian Allan, Jun 1955.
    9 Sammy Goes to the Pole, 1957?
    Sammy the Shunter Bumper Book, illus. Jack Atkins. London, Ian Allan, Oct 1954.
    Sammy Saves a Railway Line, illus. Jack Atkins. London, Ian Allan, 1965.
Billy the Bus series:
    1 Billy and the Robbers, illus. Arthur W. Baldwin. Hampton Court, Surrey, Ian Allan, Feb 1953.
    2 Billy Goes Exploring. London, Ian Allan, May 1953.
Sammy Rhymes series:
    1 Sammy Goes to School. London, Ian Allan, Jul 1953.
    2 Sammy Sees the Doctor. London, Ian Allan, Feb 1954.
Tubby the Odd-Job Engine, illus. Jill Franksen. London, Hulton Press, 1959.

Others
My Trains Book. London, Ian Allan, 1953 (contains 'The Holiday Train' and 'Sammy on the Christmas Tree' by Eileen Gibb).

(The Sammy the Shunter covers I grabbed from a 2007 eBay sale. Tubby the Odd-Job Engine is from Robin Annual 5 (1957) and is © Look and Learn Magazine Ltd. Originally published 27 April 2007. My thanks to Carolyn Holder for supplying additional information for this update.)

Comic Cuts - 27 June 2014

DUE SHORTLY! ORDER NOW FROM BEAR ALLEY BOOKS
CLICK THE PIC FOR MORE INFORMATION

The waiting is nearly over! The Countdown to TV Action index is almost here. A proof copy of the book landed on my plaster-covered doormat (explanation below) on Tuesday and I spent part of Tuesday and all of Wednesday and Thursday proofing, tweaking little bits of text, checking the captions and doing everything else that needs doing to finish the book off.

The best news as far as I'm concerned is that there hasn't been much to do as far as the pictures are concerned. A couple of little tweaks to contrast levels. Working from the printed page can be a pain in the backside when those pages are in old, yellowing comics mangled at the hands of overenthusiastic youngsters forty years ago. Overall I'm happy with the way the pictures have turned out.

What happens now is that I'll get a second proof just to make sure that any corrections I've made haven't caused any unforeseen problems and to double-check to see how the book prints. After that, copies will start winging their way to everyone who has ordered copies. The official release date I've set for a week hence because July 4th seemed like a good day to celebrate a launch.

You can now order your copy from the Bear Alley Books website. Pay via PayPal, who also accept credit card payments. If you want to pay by cheque, drop me a line at the e-mail address just below the photo at the top left of this page and I'll give you an address to send it to.

OK... the plaster-covered doormat. At quarter to eight on Monday morning, a couple of workmen turned up to do some work on the house. This was a bit of a surprise as nobody had warned us that they were due. Bang went any plans we had to get out of the house for a couple of hours – I was still waiting on the proof to arrive and Mel had booked the day off.

Instead, we pottered around while two guys ripped the roof off the porch. There has been a damp problem in the porch since we moved in and this has spread to the back of my office in the four years we've been renting this house. We've had a variety of suggestions as to what has been causing the problem, one of which was that the cheapjacks who built the porch should have made the roof with three rows of decently overlapping slates rather than two rows which barely overlapped. Water wasn't running off he roof properly but being sucked back under the top row of slates by a form of capillary action.

When the roof was off this proved not to be the main cause of problems. Rather, it was the seal on the roof between the garage and the porch. Water was getting in and leaking down behind the plaster.

The plaster had to be removed from one side of the porch and, at the time of writing, we have a bare brick wall that needs to dry out. However, we've also got a new fence along the front garden and a fence post at the back has also been replaced. Next week we're expecting the work to be finished: the wall will be replastered and the porch repainted; there's also a bit of paintwork needs touching up elsewhere in the house but that shouldn't take too long.

Random scans this week is a celebration of comics vs. the law in memory of Felix Dennis, who died last week. Welcome to the Trials Special!

First up, Tony Palmer's history of the The Trials of OZ (1971) with a cover by Jim Fitzpatrick. Next up, the magazine The Trials of Nasty Tales (1973), with a cover by Dave Gibbons. And, finally, the Knockabout Trial Special (1984), cover by Hunt Emerson, although that was far from the last time comics faced legal problems. Savoy Books were prosecuted in Manchester and Gosh! Comics in London was raided, both in the early 1990s if memory serves.

Next week we should have the latest Upcoming Comics and Recent Releases listings. There's also a biographical sketch about Eric Winter lined up and whatever else I can cobble together.

Mario Capaldi - The Princess and the Frog (Ladybird, 1973)

 

 

 

 

 

(* © Ladybird Books)

Ron Embleton - The Story of Newspapers (Ladybird, 1969)

 

 

 

 

 

(* © Ladybird Books)

Felix Dennis (1947-2014)

Felix Dennis, who has died aged 67, turned a magazine publishing business that once earned him an average income of £850 a year into one of the world's largest independent media companies with an annual turnover of over £100 million. Dennis had always been an astute businessman, able to adapt to get his way. At the famous OZ trial, where he was one of the three defendants. he provided an early example:

When I first went round looking for printers, for example, I wasn't dressed as I am now. I had very long hair; I had come from a culture different to theirs; I had a small magazine with an unestablished credit rating; and no printer's going to print a magazine that has colour and has a weird name like OZ with a freaky, long-haired guy in front of him saying 'Don't worry, we'll pay you'. And it was only after I began wearing suits and carrying a very heavy brief case  and waving a cheque book, that we ever found printers at all. (The Trials of OZ by Tony Palmer, Blond & Briggs, 1971, p.109)

The issue of OZ on trial for obscenity was the infamous "School Kids" issue, the twenty-eighth issue of the magazine, published in May 1970. Created by a group of around 20 under-eighteens drawn to the magazine via an advert in an earlier issue, the issue led to the paper's office being raided by police, the editors questioned and, a year or so later, an obscenity trial at the Old Bailey.

One of the most famous images discussed at the trial was the juxtaposition of Rupert Bear and a strip by Robert Crumb—Rupert's head was substituted over the original artwork in a 6-panel strip put together by 15-year-old Vivian Berger. Later, Berger had to defend his work in front of a jury, saying that it was "the kind of drawing that goes around every classroom, every day, in every school." Artist Feliks Topolski, a witness for the defence, described it as "satirical art", while Marsha Rowe called it "puerile, rebellious and not pornographic." Clive James "laughed like a drain at the priapic Rupert the Bear but found the rest thick-witted and raucous in the usual Oz way."

Vivian Berger (and his mum, Grace Berger, who was the chair of the National Council for Civil Liberties) is interviewed in the following video – the annoying high-pitched whine at the beginning only lasts about 15 seconds...

The three editors were found guilty but the decision was overturned at appeal. Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad was later found to be thoroughly corrupt, with officers not only accepting bribes from pornographers but also involved in every aspect of the supply chain, including writing and editing pornographic magazines.

Sales of OZ grew immediately after the trial but the magazine folded after 48 issues in 1973. Dennis had launched a sideline of underground comix to help generate cash for the struggling OZ. H. Bunch Associates published around two dozen comics between 1972 and 1975, a mixture of reprints and original British material by the likes of Chris Welch (creator of the memorable Ogoth), Edward Barker and Joe Petagno, alongside newcomers Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons and Trev Goring, who went on to work in mainstream comics.

Dennis found himself greater success with Kung-Fu Monthly magazine and, from 1976, he headed an increasingly successful consumer magazine empire. Dennis Publishing nowadays publishes 70 magazines, from Maxim to The Week, and has diversified into websites, apps, online publishing and many other ventures.

Obituaries: The Guardian (23 June 2014), Daily Telegraph (23 June 2014), The Independent (24 June 2014).

Kenneth Inns - The Story of Daniel (Ladybird, 1957)

 

 

 

 

(* © Ladybird Books)

Kenneth Inns

Kenneth Inns is a surprisingly elusive artist to track down. His name might be recognised by collectors of Ladybird Books, or or children's literature in general. A few of you may know him as an illustrators of magazines and there may even be a handful of readers who know that it was Inns who took over the artwork of "Carol Day" following the death of her creator, David Wright.

The earliest work I have been able to confirm dates from the 1930s, although you will notice that the first two books listed in the bibliography below date from 1929. I've bracketed these and added a question mark as I'm not convinced that Inns was the illustrator of the first editions of these books (which were indeed published in 1929). He may have been the illustrator of later printings of the books from the 1930s or 1940s.

At the same time as this period of book illustration, Inns also contributed to The Illustrated London News, The Wide World magazine and Every Boy's Annual. In 1953 he teamed up with Ladybird Books for the first title in a run of religious titles that covered various aspects of the life of Jesus and other biblical characters.

When David Wright died suddenly in 1967, Inns was drafted in to continue the strip and, although it is generally said that he could not match Wright's skill as an artist, he did keep the strip running for another four years as a daily and a further four months as a weekly.

What happened to Inns after 1971 I've no idea.

You can find some examples of his artwork for a later Ladybird book here. I'll post some artwork from his Story of Daniel tomorrow.

Illustrated Books
Rivals of the Reef by Percy F. Westerman.  London & Glasgow, Blackie & Son, [1929?].
Smuggler's Luck by Frank Charleston. London, Blackie & Son, [1929?].
Disgrace to the College by G. D. H. & Margaret Cole. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1937.
Young Robin Brand, Detective by Freeman Wills Croft. London, University of London Press, 1947.
Bulldog Drummond Stands Fast by Gerard Fairlie. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1947.
The Shepherd Boy of Bethlehem by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1953.
The Little Lord Jesus by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1954.
Moses, Prince and Shepherd by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1955.
The Story of Joseph by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1955.
The Child in the Temple by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1956.
Two Stories Jesus Told by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1956.
The Story of Daniel by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1957.
Jesus By the Sea of Galilee by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1958.
Jesus Calls His Disciples by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1959.
Naaman and the Little Maid by Lucy Diamond. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1959.
The Ladybird Words for Numbers series: Book 1 Understanding Numbers by J. McNally & W. Murray. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1966.
The Ladybird Words for Numbers series: Book 2 Words We Need for Numbers by J. McNally & W. Murray. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1966.
The Ladybird Words for Numbers series: Book 3 More Words for Numbers by J. McNally & W. Murray. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1966.
The Ladybird Words for Numbers series: Book 4 Everyday Words for Numbers by J. McNally & W. Murray. Loughborough, Wills & Hepworth [Ladybird Books], 1966; revised 1970.

Daniel Keyes (1927-2014)

Daniel Keyes, the author of Flowers for Algernon, died from complications of pneumonia on Sunday, 15 June 2014, aged 86. He wrote a small number of other well-received books, not all of which made it over to the UK. The text to the above obituary can be found at The Guardian website.

Flowers for Algernon (New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966; London, Cassell, 1966)
Pan Books 0330-02094-3, 1968, 238pp.
Indigo 0575-40020-X, 1989, 218pp.
Millennium 1857-98938-4 (SF Masterworks 25), 2000, 216pp. Cover by Chris Moore
---- [11th imp.], £6.99.

The Touch (New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968; London, Hale, 1971)
as The Contaminated Man, Mayflower 0583-12434-8, 1977, 208pp.

The Fifth Sally (Boston, Mass., Houghton Mifflin, 1980; London, Hale, 1981)
Hamlyn Paperbacks 0600-20520-7, 1982, 278pp.

The Minds of Billy Milligan (New York, Random House, 1981)
Penguin 0140-17266-1, 1995, xiv+426pp.

Comic Cuts - 20 June 2014

This has been a long time coming, but... I'm pleased to say that the latest book from Bear Alley Books is due shortly. I finally finished laying out the pages for Countdown to TV Action on Thursday and by the time you read this the book should be at the printers, who will be supplying me with a proof copy in the not-too-distant future.

The next job is to get the order form up on the Bear Alley Books site, which will probably appear within the next day or so. It would have been up by now had I not spent most of Monday writing up an obituary for Daniel Keyes, who died on Sunday at the age of 86. Keyes wrote the wonderful Flowers for Algernon, filmed as Charly. I have put together a small, incomplete cover gallery of his UK paperbacks for tomorrow. I hope you'll call back to take a look, and maybe someone will be able to supply some better scans.

What's next for Bear Alley Books? To be frank, I'm not sure. There are a couple of projects I'd love to get going on, but some depend on other people, some depend on companies and their willingness to license material for short print-run books, and some depend on whether I want to dive straight back into writing the history of another comic. And at the back of it is always the need to pay the rent. Unless sales pick up, I may have to get myself a real job and turn Bear Alley back into a part-time hobby. There are already projects that I can't afford to do because they would take too long to write and earn too little money. I need a sugar mummy or daddy!

Our random scans are truly random this week... a selection of books I've picked up over the last couple of weeks that don't fit into any other gallery, although that isn't to say that the author's don't deserve (and won't receive at some point) a gallery of their own.

The last book is The Mighty Book of Boosh (2008) which contains an inlaid 16-page comic book entitled The Mighty Boosh in Bongo Nihongo, co-written by Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding and artist Jake Steel (whose website is here... not to be mistaken for the identically-named gay porn star!).

Next week. I have nothing planned as yet.

Commando issues 4715-4718

Commando issues on sale 19 June 2014

Commando No 4715 – The Devil’s Shadow
Without peering into a mirror, it's not often you find yourself looking at your double, but that's what the quivering Jelly Jakes of the Convict Commandos was doing. He didn't like it one bit, especially as the man facing him was backed with four T34 tanks and about 20 heavily-armed Soviet infantrymen.
   To make matters just that little bit worse, the man whose face he was staring at was justly known as... The Devil's Shadow.

Story: Alan Hebden
Art: Manuel Benet
Cover: Manuel Benet

Commando No 4716 – The Iron Sergeant
When a task was “impossible” — a mission so dangerous that it looked like certain death — the army sent for Trouble Squad. And the man who led this bunch of hard cases was the toughest of them all — Sergeant “Rocky” Flint. He’d trained them, forged them into fighting machines who could force-march twenty miles in three hours, go three days in the desert on a cup of water, and then take on a force of Germans outnumbering them by three to one and smash them to a pulp!
    They didn’t call Flint “The Iron Sergeant” for nothing!

Introduction
Victor De La Fuente, from whose flowing pen this story’s illustrations come, was undoubtedly on of war comics’ star turns. This is his first Commando story and it’s a cracker. His style is still developing but all the trademark movement is there. As is the magnificent figure and face work that would become his stock-in trade. Victor illustrated almost 50 Commandos between 1964 and 1972 (his brothers also drew for us) and they are rightly held in high regard.
   The no-holds-barred script by Parsons is just as mighty and that cover! Wow! The restraining hand is almost lost in the blur of action.
   A really well crafted tale all round.
   You can read more about Victor De La Fuente here.—Calum Laird, Commando Editor

Story: Parsons
Art: Victor De La Fuente
Cover: Aldoma
Originally Commando No 116 (May 1964), re-issued as No 639 (April 1972)

Commando No 4717 – Crisis On Crete
Private Dan Vaughn was a bit of a layabout. He didn’t particularly like soldiering and his mate, Private Ian Hicks, was constantly nagging at him to make an effort.
   On Crete in 1941, they had a simple task, to transport some ammo in a Bedford truck. But —after an encounter with a low-flying enemy glider — Dan found himself in the middle of a battle, one involving Cretan partisans, crack German paratroopers and the SS.
   Lying about was no longer an option if Dan wanted to stay alive!

Story: Kris Roberts
Art: Vila
Cover: Janek Matysiak

Commando No 4718 – Baptism Of Fire
As boys they had hated the sight of each other, and now they were rivals to command the same RAF fighter squadron. One was a regular officer who knew all the right people…the other was an “upstart”, but he had been blooded against an enemy who gave no quarter.
   Either one might end up in charge, but what neither could forget was that in war all the peace-time rules go out the window…survival becomes the name of the game.

Introduction
Foremost, a Commando should be a good (fictional) read.
   However, it’s a welcome bonus when readers tell us that they learned something too. For example, Ian Kennedy’s stunning cover features a Curtiss Hawk aircraft flying in the colours of the Chinese Air Force. Our British hero serves in an International Squadron, and he’s hot on the tail of a Japanese Claude fighter.
   Although the story is imagined, it has an air of historical and military authenticity which we also certainly strive for…but not at the expense of a good yarn.—Scott Montgomery, Deputy Editor

Story: Ian Clark
Art: Gordon Livingstone
Cover: Ian Kennedy
Originally Commando No 2317 (October 1989), re-issued as No 3883 (February 2006)

Robert Harris: Cover Gallery

Robert Harris's latest novel has just appeared and is another in a line of bestsellers for the former journalist whose novels often fall into the high concept thriller category, usually with a historical background (whether within living memory or ancient Rome).

Harris, born in Nottingham on 7 March 1957, was educated at Belvoir High School, Bottesford, and King Edward VII School, Melton Mowbray, where he edited the school magazine and wrote plays. He was inspired to become a writer at a very young age through visits to a local print works where his father worked. Harris. He studied English Literature at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he edited the student newspaper Varsity.

He worked at the BBC on news and current affairs programmes such as Panorama and Newsnight before becoming political editor of The Observer in 1987. He has also written columns for the Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph.

Following the publication of his first non-fiction books (A Higher Form of Killing, with Jeremy Paxman, 1982; Gotcha: the Media, the Government and the Falklands Crisis, 1983; The Making of Neil Kinnock, 1984; Selling Hitler, 1986, and Good and Faithful Servant, 1990), he began producing novels and immediately hit on a winner.

Fatherland (1992) was an alternate-history thriller in which the Germans won the Second World War—a far from novel concept which dates back to within months of Hitler's death and was preceded in 1937-44 by dozens of speculative novels and stories in which Hitler's rise led to inevitable war/invasion/victory for Germany. (⇒ SFE 'Hitler Wins') 

Enigma was the first of Harris's novels I read as it involved Bletchley Park and the Enigma machine, the histories of which I find fascinating. I then read his two "what if" novels, Fatherland and Archangel, the latter involving a search for Joseph Stalin's diary leads a British historian to discover the Soviet leader had a secret son.

The Ghost was another excellent thriller (Harris's first contemporary thriller, in fact), as was The Fear Index, which also has SF elements (an AI manipulating financial markets). I've not read his Roman historical novels, although that's simply down to a lack of time and too many other books.

His new novel, An Officer and a Spy, is another historical, but this one a little closer to home as it concerns the Dreyfus affair that divided France at the turn of the 20th century after an accusation of treason was leveled against a young army captain. Captain Alfred Dreyfus was sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. Harris has turned this scandal into a novel featuring real characters— his detective, if you like, is the real-life Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage for France's Deuxième Bureau. He, too, was eventually taken to court, accused of forging documents that proved Dreyfus was innocent.

I'll say no more, although the deadline for spoilers is well past! Besides, I haven't read the book yet and it might turn out to be another alternate history in which Dreyfus is discovered to be... the opposite of what he was actually discovered to be.

Fatherland (London, Hutchinson, May 1992)
Arrow 0099-26381-5, Mar 1993.
----, May 1993 [diff. cover]
---- [18th imp.] n.d., 386pp, £5.99. Cover photo: Tony Stone
Arrow 0099-52789-8, Oct 2009, 400pp, £7.99.
Arrow 978-0099-57157-5, Apr 2012, 400pp, £7.99.

Enigma (London, Hutchinson, 1995; New York, Random House, 1995)
Arrow 978-0099-99200-4, May 1996, 464pp.
----, [22nd imp.] 2001
Arrow 0099-41688-3, 2001, 453pp, £5.99. Cover: still. Movie tie-in.
Arrow 978-0099-52792-3, Oct 2009, 464pp, £7.99.

Archangel (London, Hutchinson, Aug 1998)
Arrow 978-0088-28241-9, Oct 1999, 432pp.
----, [diff. cover].
Arrow 978-0099-49108-8, Mar 2005, 432pp. TV Tie-in.
Arrow 978-0099-52793-0, Oct 2009, 432pp, £7.99.

Pompeii (London, Hutchinson, 2003; New York, Random House, 2003)
Arrow 978-0091-79493-4, Aug 2004, 352pp.
Arrow 978-0099-28261-7, Sep 2004, 397pp, £6.99. Cover: unknown
Arrow 978-0099-52794-7, Oct 2009, 416pp, £7.99.

Imperium (London, Hutchinson, Sep 2006; New York, Simon & Schuster, Sep 2006)
Arrow 978-0091-79542-9, Dec 2006, 416pp.
Arrow 978-0099-40631-0, Sep 2007, 496pp, £6.99.
Arrow 978-0099-52766-4, Oct 2009, 496pp, £7.99.

The Ghost (London, Hutchinson, Sep 2007; New York, Simon & Schuster, 2007)
Arrow 978-0091-79624-2, Mar 2008, 320pp, £12.99.
Arrow 0099-52749-9, Jul 2008, £7.99.
Arrow 978-0099-52512-7, Mar 2010, 416pp, £7.99. Movie tie-in.
as The Ghost Writer, Arrow 978-0099-53852-3, 2010, 400pp. Movie tie-in (Export).

Lustrum (London, Hutchinson, Oct 2009)
Arrow 978-0099-40632-7, Sep 2010, 452pp, £7.99.

The Fear Index (London, Hutchinson, Sep 2011)
Arrow 978-0091-93697-6, Sep 2011, 464pp, £12.99.
Arrow 978-0099-55326-7, Jun 2012, 385pp, £7.99. Cover photo by Colin Thomas/Getty Images
----, [10th imp.] £7.99.
Arrow 978-0099-55327-4, 2012, 385pp, n/p. Cover as above.

An Officer and a Spy (London, Random House, Sep 2013)
Hutchinson 978-0091-95413-0, Feb 2014, 496pp, £13.99.
Arrow 978-0099-58088-1, May 2014, 611pp, £7.99. Cover design by Glenn O'Neill

Dictator (London, Hutchinson, 2015)
Arrow 978-1784-74197, 2016, 520pp, £7.99. Cover by Colin Thomas; design by Glenn O'Neill

Conclave (London, Hutchinson, 2016)
Arrow 978-1784-75183-8, 2017, 380pp, £7.99. Cover photos by Gabriel Bouys/Sean Rayford

Munich (2017)
Arrow ‎ 978-178475185-2, 2018
Penguin 978-178746799-6, 2022

The Second Sleep (2019)
Arrow 978-178746096-6, 2020, 414+11pp, £8.99. Cover  design by Glenn O'Neill (photos by Getty Images/Alamy Images)

V2 (2020)
Arrow 978-178746098-0, 2021, 378pp, £9.99. Cover design by Glenn O'Neill (photos by Ullsteinbild/Topfoto / Getty Images / Colin Thomas)

Act of Oblivion (2022)
Penguin ‎ 978-152916032-1, (Jun) 2023, 556pp, £9.99. Cover design by Glenn O'Neill (photos by Getty Images / Colin Thomas)

Precipice (2024)

Non-Fiction

Gotcha! The Media, The Government and the Falklands Crisis
Faber and Faber 0571-13052-6, 1983, 158pp, £2.95. Cover design by Pentagram

Selling Hitler (London, Faber & Faber, 1986)
Arrow 978-0099-56234-4, 2009, 402pp, £7.99.

The Media Trilogy (omnibus) (London, Faber & Faber, 1994)
Faber and Faber 0571-17231-8, 1994, 873pp, £9.99. Cover by variouis

(* First posted 16 October 2011. This version is expanded and updated.)