Cover Art Conversion for the "Marchesi Twelve"
From 1981 - 1983, Random House made an attempt at paperback uniformity by issuing late printings of at least ten of the "Marchesi Twelve" titles in the "Hitchcock Covers" format with new cover art by Robert Adragna and the two Hitchcock silhouettes. This conversion did not happen en masse in the same year, or even the same printing, but occurred as each individual title's "Marchesi Cover" stock was depleted. In addition, #7 The Mystery of the Fiery Eye and #8 The Mystery of the Silver Spider, were probably not converted at all.
Based on my own research, with additional information provided by Seth Smolinske and Michael Bullington, the following chart illustrates the known data for the printings of the "Marchesi Twelve:"
Each box provides information on the cover art and contents of the inner list for a particular title and printing. Blank white boxes indicate that no data is available and blank colored boxes indicate that the cover art is known, but not the contents of the inner list. As can be seen, the chart is currently incomplete, but still valuable as it shows the definite printing conversion point for numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 15 & 18. In addition, just like with the hardcover books, the number of titles in the inner list provides a rough year of when the conversion took place. For example, the Eighth Printing of #15 The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints lists 34 titles plus The Three Investigators' Book of Mystery Puzzles inside, which indicates a year of 1982.
This technique may or may not be accurate, however. For example, it is unlikely that #10 The Mystery of the Moaning Cave had eight printings from 1978 - 1980, no printings in 1981 or 1982, and then a rather sudden Ninth printing with new Adragna cover art and updated inner list in 1983. In other words, it is quite possible that Random House was lax in updating the inner lists of some of the printings that list to 30, which would indicate 1980. Therefore, it is probably safest to say that the ten known titles were updated somewhere between 1981 - 1983, with the printings shown.
As for #7 The Mystery of the Fiery Eye and #8 The Mystery of the Silver Spider, all data indicates very strongly that these titles were not converted and do not exist in the "Hitchcock Covers" issue. I have simply not personally seen, or know anyone who owns or has seen, either of these books since this website's inception.
Another interesting piece of the puzzle comes from the first Three Investigators boxed set. As is explained elsewhere in this site, there were two paperback boxed sets released by Random House. The first probably became available in late 1978 or early 1979 and originally contained the 1978 paperback editions, with Marchesi cover art, of numbers 1, 7, 8 and 10. A very late issue of that set can be found containing the following:
#1 The Secret of Terror Castle: Adragna cover art, Thirteenth Printing from 1983
#7 The Mystery of the Fiery Eye: Marchesi cover art, Seventh Printing from 1980
#8 The Mystery of the Silver Spider: Marchesi cover art, Eighth Printing from 1981
#10 The Mystery of the Moaning Cave: Adragna cover art, Ninth Printing from 1983
As can be seen, the boxed set is from at least 1983 (perhaps even 1984), yet still contains later printings of Fiery Eye and Silver Spider with "Marchesi Covers." Therefore, even at that late a date, when the other ten had already been converted, Random House still had "Marchesi Covers" stock of numbers 7 and 8. Keep in mind that by 1983, Random House already had the Revised Edition planned, so why would it issue "Hitchcock Covers" for numbers 7 and 8 in late 1983 or early 1984, just to pull them off the shelves when their Revised Edition was shipped in 1984 and 1985?
In conclusion, #7 The Mystery of the Fiery Eye and #8 The Mystery of the Silver Spider were probably not converted. There is always an outside chance that they were, however. Perhaps Random House only shipped a very small print run to libraries, or they were only sold regionally in Canada; there are several possibilities. If anyone owns or has seen Fiery Eye and Silver Spider with "Hitchcock Covers," please contact me. Fabricated/composite "scans" of Fiery Eye and Silver Spider in the "Hitchcock Cover" format can be seen below as examples of what they would look like.
This page last updated on 24-Aug-04