The British Newspaper Archive has recently uploaded the greater proportion of The Bookseller, principal periodical of the British book business. A quick search for “Frederick Muller” and “Daleks” revealed a short story in the issue of 23 October 1965:
FREDERICK MULLER, who are receiving orders marked simply Doctor Who, point out that they now have two titles, Doctor Who and the Daleks (12s. 6d.). by David Whitaker, and the latest title, Doctor Who and the Zarbi (12s. 6d.), by Bill Strutton. Booksellers are asked to distinguish. At the Frankfurt Book Fair many options on these books were sold, following the announcement that the Doctor Who films and television serial will be seen shortly in Europe and the U.S.A.
The first revelation is that Muller, via The Bookseller, refer to the first book as Doctor Who and the Daleks. Earlier references to this book in The Bookseller refer to it as Dr. Who, in the report of its forthcoming publication in the issue of 19 September 1964, and under its full title as Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, in a report of an impending ‘large reprint’ of the book in the issue of 30 January 1965. I think it had always been assumed that Doctor Who and the Daleks had been coined by paperback publisher Universal-Tandem when they reissued the book as one of the first titles under their Target children’s imprint in 1973. Instead it appears that Frederick Muller started to call the book Doctor Who and the Daleks in 1965, to distinguish it from their new title Doctor Who and the Zarbi, which was to be followed not long after by Doctor Who and the Crusaders before the Muller Doctor Who book series came to an end.
EDIT: I should acknowledge that Muller never issued an edition of the book with Doctor Who and the Daleks as the title on the cover – this seems to have been a title introduced for ordering purposes, to distinguish the backlist title from the new book about the Zarbi.
The other inspiration for retitling the book would have been the presence in cinemas of the first of the film Doctor Who adaptations, Dr Who and the Daleks. Aligning the book’s title with the film’s was a sensible commercial move. The film had potential appeal beyond that of the television series; it was more colourful, pacier, and might travel into more territories more quickly and more effectively than the film telerecordings of the original serial being sold abroad by BBC Television Enterprises. The circulation of the films and television serial isn’t distinguished in the Bookseller report, but the films are placed first.
This makes me wonder how far adaptations of televised Doctor Who into print might have been held up by uncertainty, not only about how long Doctor Who would continue – there would have been many who thought during 1965 that it was surely nearing the end of a good run – but about which version of Doctor Who was going to be dominant in whatever future it had. The most commercially exploitable stars of Doctor Who at the time seemed to be the Daleks, who starred in their own colourful book ready for Christmas 1964, and who would enjoy sequels in 1965 and 1966. They were the undisputed stars of the films – ‘Doctor Who’ does not even feature in the title of the second cinematic release. Some might have expected Doctor Who to disappear and the Daleks to continue by themselves as a commercial prospect, the Doctor being a supporting figure or absent, as he would have been from Terry Nation’s proposed Dalek television series.
It’s remarkable that there wasn’t a second Dalek Doctor Who novel; perhaps David Whitaker wanted to write a novelization where he didn’t have to share the royalities with the original screenwriter, as his second book adapted his own script, or conflict rather than co-operation was becoming predominant in this collaboration with Dalek creator Terry Nation. (See the interview with Paul Fishman in issue 3 of Vworp Vworp! magazine, or Simon Guerrier’s recent biography of David Whitaker, available from Ten Acre Films, for more.) Either way, in 1965 it might have seemed as if televised Doctor Who was about to be left behind – and a publisher might have thought twice about creating a derivative work from something outgrown by what seemed its most vital element.
Matthew Kilburn 