Tintin Forums

Hi,

I happen to possess a rather large collection of Tintin Methuen books (paperback) that is currently incomplete. I was wondering if anyone could help me as I am not sure if some of the albums that I need were actually published by Methuen as they appear to be very hard to find. These are the remaining ones I need for a full set:

Tintin in the Congo
Tintin in America
The Blue Lotus
The Secret of the Unicorn
Destination Moon
Explorers on the Moon
The Calculus Affair
The Castafiore Emerald

If any of these were not published by Methuen in paperback form then please can someone notify me. Also, does any know how you can check to see whether your books are first editions? Thanks for reading!

Tintin in the Congo was the only one in your list that Methuen never published in any format, due to the controversial nature of its content, so you won't find that, I am afraid.

All the others were published by Methuen, however not necessarily under that imprint - they used "Magnet" then "Mammoth" for the books in their children's ranges for a number of years.

My paperback copy of The Blue Lotus tells me it was "First published in Great Britain in 1983 by Methuen's Children's Books", followed by "Magnet paperback edition published 1984"; I can't tell from that if there was ever an earlier, 1983 paperback, or whether the first publication is just for hardback, and the Magnet paperback was the first of that format.

The details (that I quoted above) which are on the page opposite the first of the story, are the place to find the history of publication; however they can sometimes be confusing, and not specific about some aspects. So I'm afraid that you'll have to read it carefully (to make sense of what is a first printing, a first edition or a first impression, as they all may mean different things in the printing trade...).

While first editions hardbacks seem to have an avid following, the paperbacks never seem to have caught on as a collectible - possibly because, at close to pocket-money prices, they have always been the go-to reading copies for fans who have grown up since the seventies, with the inevitable wear-and-tear that brings.

Methuen124
Egmont has taken over publishing the tintin series. With some of the books very hard to find.,Tinting the Congo. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin and Alph-art. These seem to be out of print a lot of the times. Be patient- and keep looking.

Egmont haven't actually been the publishers for some time - the books are currently published under the Farshore banner, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Likewise, they (Egmont) ceased publication of Tintin in the Congo in 2014 (see here for the associated thread), which might explain why you're not seeing copies. That title was taken over by Casterman, who have been publishing it in English since 2016.

Neither Soviets nor Alph-Art are out of print (which would suggest that the publisher has dropped them) as far as I know, but they may be out of stock; the best thing to do is to ask your bookshop to get in titles that you want to buy - if they don't know there's a demand, they might not feel it worth the effort.

Your right jock 123, my mistake these 3 books in the series seem to be out of stock everytime I looked. If Egmont isn't the publishers why do the covers still say Egmont on the front cover?

It depends where you are talking about - the chances are some places are carrying old stock, or that online retailers have yet to change cover images on their sites, but new stocks of recently printed books won't say Egmont.

If you go to the official Tintin page, the list of Tintin books still shows Egmont on the bottom of the covers.

Drop them a line and ask them to update the images, if it's concerning to you; my thought would be that they just see it as an, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" matter - they just want a gallery showing the titles in English, and the versions they had to hand are good enough for the purpose.