User talk:John.Whythe

Meet the Tiger
Hi John,

I have that first (Ward, Lock) edition. I know it says "Meet the Tiger" on the spine and the flyleaf; but if you look at the cover page itself, you'll see that there's a tiny lozenge between "Meet" and "the", which could be construed as a dash. So in my opinion the "correct" title is moot :-( Paul Magnussen (talk) 20:33, 28 November 2013 (UTC) --

Hello Paul and thank you for your message. This is my first use of Talk and I may not be doing it right so apologies if I screw up...

I have a few copies of that 1st edition and know exactly what you mean. I'm sure that the lozenge you mention is the root cause of this long-standing confusion. To get the full picture you also need the original dustjacket in fact. If your copy has its jacket missing you can see a complete restored example on my site, www.reprojackets.co.uk

If you look at the cover of your book /sans/ jacket the lozenge is present between 'MEET' and 'THE' as you point out, and you will also notice a slightly larger lozenge below which separates title and author. If you look at the spine there are lozenges above and below author, but none within the title. This is the first evidence of inconsistency.

Now if you open the book and look at the half-title (which is the first printed page with the adverts on the reverse) the title is simply "MEET THE TIGER", and if you now turn on to the title page itself (opposite the adverts) it's again shown as "MEET THE TIGER". And once more on the opening page (numbered 7 at the foot) it is again unhyphenated. At the very top of the next page the running header starts, showing the title "MEET THE TIGER". The lozenge/hyphen on the front cover is looking a bit lonely!

Turning to the dustjacket, the front cover shows the title "MEET <> THE <>\ TIGER" where the "<>" are lozenges again rather than textual hyphens, and my '\' represents a linebreak. The jacket spine shows the title without lozenges, the lozenges instead being purely decorations above and below the author.

I think the obvious conclusion from all this evidence is that the front cover of the book erroneously carried over one of the lozenges from the dustjacket design, which has been interpreted as a hyphen. It was presumably the inspiration of one of the early American editions which was entitled "Meet - the Tiger! / The Saint in Danger".

Cheers, John