Talk:Prisoner's Base

Notes on infobox
The infobox has been modified to conform with the novels project style guidelines, which indicate that the infobox should describe "only the media types in which the novel was originally available. For example, eighteenth-century novels were never published in 'hardback and paperback' nor in audiobook so it is inappropriate to list those print subtypes." Since the Nero Wolfe books (1934–1975) were originally available in hardcover, and only later published in other formats, the infoboxes for these Rex Stout novels and novella collections are being amended to read "Print (Hardcover)" -- with "Media type" describing only the first-edition printing.

The ISBN field will be completed, but read "NA" by request of the novels project. Subsequent releases of the book are listed with their ISBNs in a section of the article headed "Release details."

The genre in the infobox is being listed as Detective fiction, a classification that includes both the novels and the novella collections. Novels and novella collections are clearly differentiated from each other in the articles' lead paragraphs, and in categories that appear at the bottom of the articles.

A book cover will be added to the infobox soon; they're being added to the Nero Wolfe books in chronological order. — WFinch 02:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * First edition book cover was added to infobox June 5; "needs info box cover" has been changed to "no" to remove category. — WFinch 17:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Unsigned edit
Oops. Thought I was logged in, but not so. The edit to PB made on 8/16/07 was made by: TurnerHodges 05:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And an excellent edit it was. — WFinch 17:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Out Goes She
It's certainly an arresting cover. It's amazing that you were able to get such a clean scan from such an old edition. It's doubtful that it's Sarah Jaffe on the cover: the text has it that she was strangled with a doubled Venetian blind cord. So maybe it's Priscilla: the text just says "some kind of cord." But it goes on to say that she was wearing a jacket, not a full length coat.

Obviously, these are just quibbles. What I really want to know is the reason that the British edition changed the book's title. Can it have been because the term "prisoner's base" was unfamiliar in Uckfield? It would surprise me to learn that it was any more familiar in the U.S. TurnerHodges (talk) 21:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's my crop on the title/name game:


 * Darebase/prisoner's base was a popular children's game in the 1900s; Stout told McAleer that his publisher changed the title of the book because, although he played it as "darebase," it was more commonly called "prisoner's base" outside the Midwest. According to Stout, another alternate name for the game was "pum pum pullaway," and wouldn't that have been a helluva title.


 * Per a bunch of Google Results: The game originated in England, which should have made it as familiar to British as to American readers but maybe not, because King Edward III banned it in the 1300s.


 * "Out goes she" also originated across the Pond; it's an old children's counting/rhyming game and, no kidding, a forerunner of "Eeny meeny...."


 * I like "OGS" better than "PB" as a title because it gets in the idea of serial female murder victims, as opposed to just the last -- as in, "one, two, three...out goes she." And I love the stunning "OGS" artwork (one of my very favorite NW covers) which could also be interpreted as 'covering' all three victims.RRRRowcliff (talk) 16:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Missing chapter 17
An important thing about _Out Goes She_ (which I own, the White Circle Crime Club's paperback edition is that it has an extra chapter, chapter 17. _Prisoner's Base_ which I also own ends on '...Purley get handcuffs on ' whose name I leave out in case somebody is reading here who hasn't read the book yet.  Out Goes She has a page and a half extra of banter between Wolfe and Archie.  I wonder what to do about this.  In particular, is this short enough that I could just post it somewhere without risking lawsuit for copyright infringement?  Every fan of the series wants to do one thing when  I tell them of this -- read the pages -- as a result my paperback is in rather bad condition.  Anybody know the rules?  — Lacreighton (talk) 22:49, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe the only edition of Prisoner's Base that's missing chapter 17 is the 1992 Bantam Crimeline paperback (for details see the article's Publication history section). Unfortunately that happens to be the edition most people would have these days. I have a sick feeling the e-book released in 2010 may be the truncated version, too, although I don't have it. If that can be confirmed by anyone please post it here so the article can be updated. This is the Penguin Random House contact page for anyone who wishes to draw the publisher's attention to the error. Any other edition of the book has chapter 17, as far as I know. — WFinch (talk) 00:45, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I have the 1963 (New Edition) Bantam edition. It references the 1955 Bantam printing.  It doesn't have the chapter.  I know my copy is a replacement for an earlier version of the book that my father had purchased, I assume the 1955 edition, as he tended to buy these as soon as they came out.  That book didn't have the chapter, either, so I suspect all the Bantam editions are in such a state, and I wonder about the Viking Press (1952) edition, and the Dollar Mystery Guild (1953) edition.  Also mentioned in my Bantam book is  an OMNIBOOK syndication, May 1953.  I have no idea what that was.  Maybe we need a missing chapter section in the main article? — Lacreighton (talk) 17:08, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

I googled for 'OMNIBOOK Syndication', to see if I could test a supposition that I had, that this was where the truncation happened -- and Bantam got it's version from this. I'd never heard of OMNIBOOK Syndication, and neither has Google. But I did get one hit: The Google online copy of the book itself. This lists a somewhat different publishing history. I think that this means that in 1963 Bantam issued a new edition, and this is the one that I own. So the 1955 still needs checking, and maybe we need to edit the Publication history. — Lacreighton (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Omnibook was a large-format digest of fiction — "authorized abridgements of current best-selling books". I have a copy with a condensed version of Over My Dead Body, which is even shorter than the abridged version in The American Magazine. Even in digest form, though, Prisoner's Base probably doesn't end as abruptly as it does in that Bantam version, which simply missed printing those last pages. By the way, contrary to that printing history in the Bantam, the May 1953 Omnibook doesn't contain Prisoner's Base, and the first Bantam edition was printed in 1955, not 1953.


 * I do have the 1955 Bantam and chapter 17 is present. I have the Viking first edition and BCE and the chapter is (of course) present in those. I didn't know the 1963 Bantam edition was lacking the final chapter — I thought it just happened in 1992. So it looks as though 1963 is the first occurrence, and it was carried forward in 1992 — and possibly beyond that, in every format.


 * So that 1963 edition was "new", alright — it omitted the end of the novel. As this gets sorted out it would be a service to preface the Publication history with a paragraph that alerts people that they need to seek out a complete edition. — WFinch (talk) 18:51, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Stout was alive in 1963. Didn't he complain? I guess it must have slipped his notice. I think a letter to Bantam is in order, asking them to restore the chapter they had in 1955 but managed to lose. I'd also like permission for them to let us link to the missing chapter here in wikipedia. It would be a nice present for those who only know of the Bantam 1963+ edition truncated version of the story -- which must be some 90+% of all Wolfe fans. I know that I had no idea until I found _Out Goes She_ in a used book bin, on the way to London Stansted airport, which meant that I read the whole thing even though I knew it was Prisoner's Base which I already owned. And then I had that wonderful discovery of the last chapter. Somehow we have got to get those pages out where they can be read by all Wolfe fans so they can have this experience, too. — Lacreighton (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I've added information to the Publication history that links to The Wolfe Pack website, which verifies that Random House discovered the omission in most paperbacks in 2011. The site also provides the final chapter in PDF format, which can be downloaded.


 * In other news, I added a discovery from a fellow NW fan, that the audiobook edition of Prisoner's Base read by Michael Prichard omits the final chapter. — WFinch (talk) 00:08, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I just looked at the end of the Google book. https://books.google.se/books?id=Hj5LUh3OcOcC&pg=PT124&dq=Purley+get+handcuffs+on+Siegfried+Mueke&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=W-KRVfjSBsPMyAOJxLrIDQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Purley%20get%20handcuffs%20on%20Siegfried%20Mueke&f=false

There is no last chapter. But there is a page and a half of extra from someplace else in the book, are you seeing this??

And then I plunked down 9USD to buy the amazon.com Kindle version, It has a Bantam cover. And to my surprise, chapter 17 is restored there! :)

So now what do we do? Lacreighton (talk) 00:39, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll add the terrific news that the e-book presents the entire novel — good job. The Publication history section now begins with the information that Random House recognized the error, and that the Wolfe Pack is offering the two missing pages in PDF format. — WFinch (talk) 00:44, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words.

Does the Google book preview end of chapter 16 lead into nonsense for you, too? I could plunk down the cash again for a google-book for your android tablet version, but would like to check this first.

Also in things like: 1963, New York: Bantam Books #F2700, new edition, December 1963, paperback. Second printing (#F-3990) March 1969. Sixth printing March 1969, seventh printing (#Q2190, new cover) September 1975, eighth printing (#13227-X) April 1980. This edition is missing the final chapter (17) which is 1.5 pages in length in the hardcover editions.

I don't understand what #F2700 means, nor any of the other things after hashmarks. What do I need to read to learn what this is?

Laura Lacreighton (talk) 01:13, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The primary reference for the Publication history section is a book edited by Guy Townsend, Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1980), which isn't so easy to find any longer. In the introduction he wrote that he and his fellow editors did their best to document the many editions and printings of the paperbacks, which aren't always numbered in a standard fashion. #F2700 is the book number that probably appears on the front cover and/or spine of the 1963 paperback, the first edition of that printing. Other book numbers were assigned to later printings (the seventh printing book number is #Q2190), and if you're shopping via used-book sites those printing numbers and book numbers are specifiers that help you determine that what you're ordering is really what you want. Many people are collectors.


 * Stout would probably have come completely unglued if he'd known about Google books, so I'm actually comforted that the free Internet version descends into nonsense.


 * Thanks again for purchasing the Kindle version so we know that Penguin Random House corrected the omission as best they could.— WFinch (talk) 02:06, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

You are most welcome, but -- ahem -- the internet version descends into nonsense and then goes into somebody's talk about the series, a perfectly correct diagram of the layout of the Brownstone (wherever it may lie).

Indeed my book has #F2700 on the spine, though not on the front cover. Thank you for explaining. Looks like I have the genuine 1963 reprint.

I am so happy that the missing chapter has already been made available and we can, without damaging wikipedia, link to it here. :) :)

I could go buy the Google Play version for my tablet now and see how this works out, but I don't want all of you to get the idea that I am made of money. Lacreighton (talk) 02:48, 30 June 2015 (UTC)