In 1986 and 1987, two of Anthony Horowitz's earliest novels, the first two Diamond Brothers books, were published by Grafton Books (with paperback editions later printed under their Dragon imprint) -- The Falcon's Malteser (pictured above with its original cover), and its sequel Public Enemy Number Two.
In 1988, The Falcon's Malteser was adapted as a film, retitled in the UK as Just Ask for Diamond, and Lion Books published a new edition of the book tying in to the movie. The following picture of that edition was provided by Giles Leigh:
In 1991, a third book featuring the Diamond Brothers, South by South East, was published, at the same time as a TV serial that was either an adaptation of the book, or the book was a novelisation of the TV series (I haven't entirely worked out the relationship between the two yet, but you can read all about my attempts to do so here) began its one and only UK transmission. In any case, Lion Books also published the original version of that third book, and it looks like this (I have thanked Christian Bernard-Gauci for first putting me onto the existence of this original version before, but let's do so again, especially since it's his picture).
At the same time, Lion also reprinted the first two books in the series. Thanks to Jonathan Craig and his brother, who dug out their old copy for me, I am able to provide what I believe to be the first ever picture on the Internet of what the 1991 reprint of The Falcon's Malteser looked like:
Then, in 1995, the books were taken up by a new publisher, Walker Books, who continue to print the series to this day. But when the books were reprinted by Walker, all had some significant alterations made to them. If you have any of the older copies pictured above, then you have the original version of the text (thanks to Giles and Jonathan, I have confirmed that there are absolutely no differences whatsoever between the '86, '88 and '91 versions -- all three are even typeset the same). If you have any Walker edition, then you have the revised version.
(Note that I do not know anything about non-UK editions of the books, but if you have any information you'd be willing to volunteer about them it would be welcome. There is one other pre-1995 version of the book published in the UK not mentioned above: this, which appears to be an omnibus of four children's adventure books from different authors that were all published by Lion. I see no reason to think that the version of The Falcon's Malteser contained therein is any different, but if you have a copy then I would be grateful for absolute confirmation.)
I have already given an overview of the differences between the original and updated versions of South by South East here, as part of my quest to learn as much as possible about the TV series. But doing that post prompted me to track down the original versions of the first two books -- I'd always been curious about the two copyright dates in the Walker editions indicating there was a different version originally published -- and here we have the differences between the 1986 and 1995 versions of The Falcon's Malteser, with Public Enemy Number Two to follow at some point in the not-too-distant future. As with the earlier SbSE comparison, this is not an exhaustive list of changes, just the salient ones -- pretty much everything not covered here is minor changes to punctuation and removing hyphens from the middle of words.
Note that all Walker editions were dedicated to the memory of Dursley McLinden; for obvious reasons, no such dedication appears in earlier copies.
Chapter 1: A Package / The Package
I suppose it's a good start when literally the first word in the book marks the beginning of the changes; Chapter 1 is titled "A Package" in the original version, but "The Package" in the rewrite. There is also one paragraph totally rewritten in the '95 version, when Johnny Naples first walks in:
|
1986 version |
1995 version |
|
Now I've seen some dwarves in the circus and on TV. There were seven of them in a book I once read... you know the one, where they shack up with some dame in a wood. But it came as a jolt to see one face to face - or face to neck, rather, because that was as high as he got. I was only thirteen, but I already had six inches on him. |
OK - maybe you're not supposed to call them dwarves these days. Vertically challenged... that's what it says in the book. But not this book. The truth is, this guy was as challenged as they come. I was only thirteen but already I had six inches on him and the way he looked at me with cold, unforgiving eyes - he knew it and wasn't going to forget it. |
Another example of inflation creeps in a few pages later: in the original version, Johnny Naples pays the Diamonds one hundred pounds ("twenty portraits of Her Majesty the Queen, each one printed in blue"), but in 1995 this is updated to two hundred pounds ("twenty portraits of Her Majesty the Queen, each one printed in brown"). Apart from that, the two chapters are identical.
Chapter 2: Tim Diamond Inc.
This chapter begins with the Brothers' shopping spree with their payment for looking after the package. They finish with a film; in 1986 it's E.T., but in 1995 this has changed to 101 Dalmations [sic]. Note that there was a re-release of E.T. in 1985; Horowitz was presumably thinking of the 1961 animation when he did his rewrite, and not the live-action version given that wasn't released until 1996.
Chapter 3: The Fat Man
General notice: In this chapter we meet one of the story's several villains, The Fat Man. In 1986, he is consistently referred to as "the fat man" (except for the chapter title, which is capitalised), but in 1995 this becomes "The Fat Man" in all cases. (The capitalisation makes sense; this is his nickname, after all.)
When the Brothers get to Trafalgar Square to meet the Fat Man, we get another revision:
1986 version | 1995 version |
There was a stall open selling corn and a few people were feeding the pigeons. I bought a packet and fed myself. It was ten to one and in all the excitement I'd missed out on breakfast. Taxis, buses, cars and lorries rumbled all around us, streaming down to the Houses of Parliament and across to Buckingham Palace. I leant against a lion, looking out for anyone with a forty-two inch waist. A pigeon landed on my shoulder and I gave it some corn. | There were a few tourists feeding the pigeons. I felt sorry for them. Who'd be a pigeon in London... or for that matter a tourist? I had a Picnic bar so I pulled out a couple of peanuts and fed them myself. I ate the rest of it. It was ten to one and in all the excitement I'd missed out on breakfast. Taxis, buses, cars and lorries rumbled all around us, streaming down to the Houses of Parliament and across to Buckingham Palace. I leant against a lion, looking out for anyone with a hundred centimetre waist. A pigeon landed on my shoulder and I gave it another peanut. |
Note that the sale of bird feed in Trafalgar Square was not banned until 2001.
The next change is to delete an extremely unfortunate reference to the Fat Man's chauffeur's skin colour; the word in question was at best considered uncouth even when the book was first published, yet it survived until the 1995 edition (I have confirmed it is regrettably present in both the 1988 and 1991 editions).
When the Fat Man explains his recent weight loss, he says he has shed "twenty-one stone" in 1986, but "a hundred and thirty-five kilograms" by 1995.
Chapter 4: Opening Time
1986 version | 1995 version |
What with the dwarf and the fat man, I figured I'd already seen enough strange people for one day, but evidently it was international freak week in Fulham. | What with the dwarf and the Fat Man, I figured I'd already seen enough weird people for one day, but it seemed that today, like buses and musketeers, they were coming in threes. |
Yeah, I'm going to say that's another change for the best.
There is a typographical error in the 1986 edition -- "it won't a take me a minute". I don't know if the extraneous "a" was deleted in the 1988 or 1991 editions (my guess is "no"), and don't much care, but it's fixed in the 1995 revision. In keeping with the doubling of their payment earlier, Betty Charlady charges a tenner a day, which she knocks down to a fiver, in the original, but in the rewrite she charges twenty quid a day which she reduces to a tenner.
Chapter 5: D for Dwarf
The weight of the box of Maltesers is given as 5.15 ounces in 1986, but 146g in 1995. This is not the last time two different descriptions of a box of Maltesers will come up in this article.
In the original, Nick suggests checking the Yellow Pages under "D for dwarf", but in 1995 he suggests "V for vertically challenged". The envelope the Maltesers were in cost 8p in 1986, but 18p in 1995. Another typo is also fixed in the rewrite here ("dwarfs" is corrected, more than once, to "dwarves"). Then there's a rather curious deletion:
"You want to speak to the dwarf, you'll find him at the Hotel Splendide at the bottom of the Portobello Road."
We stared.
"How do you know?" I said.
Then there's a really peculiar change -- "advertise" is spelt correctly in the 1986 edition, but in 1995 this is changed to "advertize"! Still technically correct, I suppose, but I wonder if some American edition was used as the base for the 1995 rewrite.
Oh, and here's a curious note: the book the hotel manager is reading is "a cheap paperback... the paperback was even cheaper than this one and it didn't have as many pages". This line is the same across all editions, even in the original 1986 hardback -- was Horowitz expecting it to be published in paperback, and nobody caught this line in time to fix it?
When Herbert and Nick try to find Johnny Naples' room number out of the hotel manager, they make up a story about Naples owing a client of theirs a lot of bread ("and if we find him, we'll cut you in for a slice"). This leads to another small deletion:
"Room 39," he said. "And I want ten per cent."
A few lines later, when Nick refers to Herbert by his stage name, this line is given as 'Come on, "Tim"', in the original (putting emphasis on the fact that Tim is not his real name), but it's just "Come on, Tim," in 1995. This is interesting, but we'll have to get on to the post comparing the two different versions of Public Enemy Number Two before I can explain exactly why.
Chapter 6: The Falcon
A reference to the Falcon having had his own mother rubbed out gives the year 1955 in the original version, but is updated to 1965 in the revision. The names Snape writes on his blackboard are given in a different font in Walker editions (they were just in block capitals in the original).
Chapter 7: Grannies
When Nick carefully examines the box of Maltesers, in the original the best before date is 28-12-86; the revision again moves things on ten years, to 28-12-96. The 1995 revision was the only time this date was changed, so even in 1991 the expiry date is given as 1986, and 2002 editions have it as best before 1996.
Now we come to the only known difference between different Walker editions of the books: at some point around 2010, the book was updated to avoid giving a specific best before date, changing "and, in a red panel, 'Best before 28-12-96'" to "and, in a red panel, the best before date". This unfortunately means we lose a pretty neat meta-joke; the Maltesers' best before date is a few days after the climax of the book!
The second change is more interesting. The numbers below the barcode on the Maltesers are, in the original, 3000 510 004154; in the revision, this changes to 3521 201 000000. In both cases, this is the phone number for the cemetery where the Falcon's diamonds are buried, just with a few zeroes to stretch it out; the zeroes are randomly inserted in the original, but are less subtly all at the end in the revised version!
Finally, the rewrite changes "How about little dots?" to "How about the little dots?" when Herbert suggests there's a secret message written in invisible ink on the packet; the revised version seems to make less sense to me, but oh well.
Chapter 8: The Casablanca Club
A reference to "sixteen feet" changes to "five metres" in the revision. I hope you're all as gripped by this as I am.
In the club, the same deeply unfortunate word used to describe the chauffeur earlier rears its ugly head again to describe the pianist; it is changed to "black" in 1995.
Minor oddity: Both versions, near the end of the chapter, have the line "I should have been killed. I could have been killed," -- which, to me, should logically come the other way round, but the rewrite doesn't correct this!
Chapter 9: "Nice day for a funeral"
As alluded to previously, the telephone number for Brompton Cemetery is 351 4154 in the original, but updated to 3521201 in the rewrite. Brompton Cemetery is a real place, but I don't know what its real telephone number was in either 1986 or 1995.
There is then a deletion, after Nick discovers Snape and Boyle are at the funeral:
Boyle was behind him, dressed in a crumpled black suit with a mourning band on his arm. I guessed he probably caused more funerals than he went to.
It's hard to see why precisely this would have crossed the line; maybe Horowitz just thought it was a pretty lame joke?
Chapter 10: Crocodile Tears
Here's an interesting one. We get an addition in the nineties version at this point:
I jerked a thumb at the police assistant. "He needs a social worker more than me," I said.
Boyle lumbered a few steps towards me but then Snape grabbed hold of him and dragged him back into the interrogation room. For a minute it was as if I wasn't there.
"You're being ridiculous, Boyle." Snape muttered. "I've told you about those violent videos..."
"I just want to..." Boyle began.
"No! No! No! How many times do I have to tell you. This isn't the right sort of image for a modern metropolitan police force."
"It used to be," Boyle growled.
"In Transylvania," Snape replied. He turned back to me. "Go on, son. Out of here." he said. I glanced at Herbert who sneezed miserably. The door slammed. And suddenly I was alone.
Your guess is as good as mine as to the nature of this one, but I would note there are two grammatical errors in the new material here, indicating it may have been written in a hurry. Then we get another odd change:
1986 version | 1995 version |
Everything about her spelt class. The cigarette at the end of the long, ivory holder in one hand. Even the tin plate with the lumps of raw meat in the other. | Everything about her spelt class. The slim, crystal champagne glass in one hand. Even the tin plate with the lumps of raw meat in the other. |
Other references to smoking were left in, so maybe Horowitz or his publishers just took issue with the correlation between smoking and elegance implied in the original. A less odd change follows shortly after:
1986 version | 1995 version |
Now I like alligators... provided they're hanging on a lady's arm with lipsticks and purses inside. But this one was no hand-bag. | The last time I saw an alligator it was hanging on some rich woman's arm with lipsticks and purses inside. But this one was no handbag. |
Chapter 11: Killer in the Rain
Another change that makes sense: When reflecting on Herbert's current predicament, Nick originally says "they could have killed him by now", but the revision has it as "Boyle could have killed him by now".
Yet another price change follows: the hotel's prices are five pounds per night or six pounds with a bed in 1986, but 1995 ups it to fifteen and sixteen pounds respectively. (Nick originally counts out "six one pound notes" from the money he's taken from Herbert, but just "the money" in the rewrite.)
The words Nick finds on the note in Naples' hotel room ("DIGITAL, PHOTODETECTOR, LIGHT EMITTING DIODE") are again just given in block capitals in the original, but in a different font in Walker editions.
Anyway, there's a few more changes of measurements ("forty pounds overweight" becomes "twenty kilograms overweight", and a couple of conversions from feet to metres) to see us out.
Chapter 12: The Professor
This chapter is unaffected by the rewrite (in fact, Horowitz seems to miss one of the occasions where he should have doubled the prices Betty Charlady charges!)
Chapter 13: Fairy Cakes
In the original, after being kidnapped Nick is taken to Lafone Street, which is a real London street; in the revision, this is changed to the fictitious Bayly Street, which is presumably a reference to Stephen Bayly, who directed the film adaptation of The Falcon's Malteser and was an executive producer of the South by South East TV series. There's also another interesting change: when Nick notes that there are fancy apartments under construction in the street, in the original his monologue notes that the trouble with London is that "the rich have inherited its history", but in the revision it's that "the rich have got it all".
When Nick meets Gott and Himmell for the first time, another change which improves the book no end (Gott and Himmell's relationship being a reference to Gutman, Wilmer and Cairo's Ambiguously Gay nature from The Maltese Falcon):
I got the feeling the two men were fond of each other. Perhaps too fond.
"This way," Blondie said, gesturing with the gun.
"After you," I replied.
"No, no. You go first, darling."
"Delicious," simpered the friend.
"I don't think so."
Nick's temporary nickname of "Friend" for the other man is changed to "The dark-haired man" a page or so later to avoid a non-sequitur. Shortly after, some more rather unfortunate lines are removed, as well as some which remove Gott and Himmell's relationship entirely -- there's really no trace of it left in the 1995 version, which is perhaps Horowitz overcompensating for removing the problematic lines:
"I'm William," Blondie said. He gestured with a hand that was so limp I thought it was going to fall off his arm. "And that's Eric."
"I do hope you like fairy cakes."
"Seems appropriate," I said.
The kettle boiled.
Himmell filled my cup. He didn't seem to have quite such a good grasp of English as his friend, but I did notice that he had quite a good grasp of his friend's knee.
"Anudder cup?"
"Nein danke, mein liebling."
Later, the line "Well, Nicholas darling," removes the last word, but an extraneous space is left in the rewrite! There's also a few now familiar changes of measurements when Nick escapes from the flat.
Chapter 14: The Last Chord
A really odd thing to single out for deletion, as Nick is preparing to push the piano out the window:
The blue van drew closer, slowing down as it prepared to park.
"Now!" I said.
We pushed with all our strength.
Apart from correcting a minor typographical error ("where" to "were"), the usual measurement system changes, and a few changes reactive to earlier ones (making sure the street name is changed), it's the only alteration to this chapter, though.
Chapter 15: Selfridges
For some bizarre reason, the word "loquat" is spelt "lo quot" in the 1986 edition; it's corrected in the 1995 revision.
When Nick describes the cash tills at Selfridges, the barcode scanner is originally specified as only being on one of them, and is described as a "newfangled device" -- a reference which, for obvious reasons, was deleted in 1995.
When The Falcon's Malteser was first published in 1986, barcodes had only been in use in the UK since 1979, and going by some of the language Horowitz used earlier he was clearly quite a few years behind the times anyway. Even by 1984, only 100 UK stores were scanning at the till. The book does, to a degree, rely on the fact that barcodes are a relatively new invention, not yet in widespread use, for its central mystery -- that the Maltesers are the key to the Falcon's bank vault because the barcode will unlock it. When the book was revised in 1995 over 20,000 stores in the UK were scanning at the till, and it was in fact that same year that the people responsible decided to stop counting that number. There's not really anything the rewrite can do about this, to be fair, but it's interesting that the original version has a sense of mystery later printings cannot hope to replicate. Note that in the book, Nick has to go to a journalist to find out what Naples' note means, but in the film -- released just two years later -- he already has an idea of what he's looking for and goes to his local supermarket till.
Anyway, apart from the fonts for a couple of signs in the stores being changed similar to Snape's chalkboard earlier, when Nick shoots Himmell with the harpoon gun (note that in the '88 film, this was changed to Nick using the harpoon gun to bring down a display Himmell was standing underneath):
1986 version | 1995 version |
The gun shuddered in my hands. The harpoon shot out, snaking a silver rope behind it. It hit Himmell in the chest, just below one shoulder. He was carried about three feet in the air and hurled into a rack of golf-clubs. The Americans stared at me. "Good gun," I said. I dropped it. Himmell stayed where he was, buried under the golf-clubs, the harpoon slanting out of his pale green suit. | The gun shuddered in my hands. The harpoon shot out, snaking a silver rope behind it. For a moment I thought I'd missed. The harpoon seemed to sail over Himmell's shoulder. But then I saw that one prong had gone through his suit, pinning him to the wall. The American stared at me. "Good gun!" I said. And dropped it. Himmell lunged forward but he wasn't going anywhere. H was stuck there like a German calendar. "You little...!" he began. I didn't want to hear him. |
Chapter 16: Information
Another reference to the barcode scanner at the till being "experimental" is removed, and when Nick is looking for a journalist, "new technology" is changed to just "technology". Then there's a whole paragraph, which again strikes me as an odd thing to remove:
And you can see it [the Fulham Express] every Wednesday, in the afternoon, stuffed into litter bins or drinking up the dirt in the gutter.
Clifford Taylor wasn't a bad journalist. I remembered him from the time he'd come to interview us. He was about Herbert's age only scrawnier, with glasses, a long, thin neck and acne. He'd written quite a decent piece about us -- decent enough to get us our first job. It was a long shot going to him. He might not know anything. But it was a short bus ride.
The bus had taken us all the way down the Fulham Road, past Herbert's flat, dropping us off at the bottom, at Fulham Broadway.
Another edit similar to the earlier ones re: the newness of bar-codes:
"No." I sighed. "I'm talking about shops. And about bar-codes."
"The little black and white lines," Lauren added. She'd sat down and lit a cigarette.
"That's right. I want to know how they work."
Clifford ran a hand through his hair. There wasn't that much left for him to run it through. In fact he had more dandruff than actual hair. "Bar-codes," he muttered. He reached for a pile of paper and sifted through it.
"Do you know anything about them?" I asked.
"Of course." He smiled thinly. "There was a piece about them. Information technology and all that. Hang on..." He found a sheet of paper and pulled it out. "Here you go. A shop opened near the station and our consumer reporter did a piece on it."
"Who's the consumer reporter?" Lauren asked.
He blushed. "Actually, I am. I'm also the editor. I do everything."
"Tell me about bar-codes," I said.
"OK." He leant back and put his feet up on the desk.
Chapter 17: In the Fog
Mercifully, this chapter is (barring usual consistent changes across the whole book) the same in both versions.
Chapter 18: In the Bath
"Did he tell you everything?" I asked.
"He sang like a canary," Snape said.
"Well... Herbert and canaries have a lot in common."
Snape held out a hand. "I want the Maltesers," he said.
Chapter 19: The Shining Light
Due to his not getting shot with a harpoon in this version, a paragraph about Himmell's condition is removed:
It had been a week since I'd last seen him and Herbert had lost weight.
He was in better shape than Himmell though. As well as the plaster-cast arm, the blond German was now swathed in bandages from the neck to the waist. There were so many bandages that his shirt would no longer fit. He had a jacket draped over his shoulders and he was shivering like one of those mechanical dolls in Selfridges. His face was the colour of yoghurt. The harpoon hadn't done him a lot of good.
I smiled at Herbert/him. "Hello, Herbert," I said.
Another deletion, presumably felt to be too obvious:
She stretched out her hands for the cuffs but he threw himself at her anyway -- a flying rugby tackle that sent her crashing to the ground. Boyle certainly liked violence.
Chapter 20: The Falcon's Malteser
And the final chapter is, barring one last font change for a handwritten note, the same in both versions.
Obviously, the most important change is to remove some extremely problematic attitudes and phrases from the original; of the three original Diamond Brothers books, The Falcon's Malteser is the only one not to see significant changes to its plot when republished by Walker. So come back at some as yet undetermined point in the future, where we'll be examining the differences between the 1987 and 1997 editions of Public Enemy Number Two, then bringing this whole saga to a close.
Thanks again to Giles Leigh, Christian Bernard-Gauci and the Craigs for checking various old editions of the books for me
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