The Art of... The Daleks

Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks was the full title of David Whitaker's novelisation of Terry Nation's first Doctor Who story. From this point on, however, we won't be using this lengthy title. The book differs greatly from the TV story in that it features the very first meeting of the Doctor with Ian and Barbara, who do not know each other. It is told in the first person by Ian, who comes to the aid of Barbara and Susan who have been involved in an accident on a fogbound Barnes Common in South West London.

It was published in  hardback by Frederick Muller Ltd in November 1964. The cover art was by Arnold Schwartzman, using one of his internal illustrations.

The pink cover was the one which they used for a recent reprint, but it was also available in a grey version. No Daleks on the cover.

The book made its paperback debut from Armada in 1965. This had a colourful cover depicting the Doctor in a billowing cape, standing in front of the TARDIS. Considering that the story begins on a foggy winters night, the blue sky and bright green grass make for a less than atmospheric cover. And there are still no Daleks.

The 1967 edition by Avon was for the US market. The Daleks finally feature on the cover, albeit toy ones armed with sparklers.

The Target paperback came in 1973, with the cover art by the late Chris Achilleos. For reference he had a photo of Hartnell from The Celestial Toymaker, whilst the Daleks came from the TV Century 21 comic strip (The Rogue Planet) rather than BBC photos. We also have a pink TARDIS. 

This was the first version to reduce the title to the simpler Doctor Who and the Daleks.

It was one of a trio of Muller Hartnell novels which Target were republishing, the others being Doctor Who and the Zarbi and Doctor Who and the Crusaders.

This version of the cover has been reprinted twice - giving it first the diamond logo and then the TV Movie one in 2011.

The Achilleos cover was also used for the audiobook reading of the story, by William Russell.

Achilleos' cover was reused for the Turkish version (Doktor Kim Ve Dalekler) and a Dutch edition (Doctor Who En De Daleks) which elected to reverse the image.

One of the oddest covers came in 1975 when White Lion issued the book in hardback. You may have seen this version in public libraries. With the success of Tom Baker, those first three novels all featured the Fourth Doctor on their covers instead of the First. There are little Daleks and a TARDIS around Baker's eyes.

Other foreign versions include the French one, presented by the twins Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff, and another Dutch version, this time a 1966 hardback edition. The Doctor on the French cover has been given a Fourth Doctor scarf but otherwise is dressed like Hartnell. Both artists have clearly seen Daleks for reference, though the French ones look a lot later.

Oddest of all are the Japanese and Portuguese covers. For the Japanese market, the TARDIS is more like a traditional red telephone box and we see that the Daleks are black with wobbly bases. The title translates roughly as "Space-Time Earth Overwintering I".

The Portuguese one simply doesn't seem to represent anything recognisable from the story, as though the artist has never so much as seen a photograph of it.

Finally, for the books, Target reissued the paperback in 1992, with a new cover by artist Alistair Pearson using a number of BBC reference images, including one of Ian taken for An Unearthly Child.

Moving onto the VHS and DVD covers, the story was first released on VHS in two parts. The first half was "The Dead Planet" and the photomontage cover was in monochrome B&W. It contained Episodes 1 - 4. The second half was subtitled "The Expedition" and included Episodes 5 - 7. It had the same cover. only tinted a reddish brown. Both tapes were issued in June 1989.

In the US you could get both of the British tapes together on the one release (above).

Whilst the main image came from the story itself, the smaller Daleks at the foot of the cover originated from Day of the Daleks and were therefore of the wrong design.

The story was reissued on a single VHS tape in February 2001, in remastered form. The version on the right is the Australian release. Note the higher level of guidance rating. Australia had much stricter guidelines on TV violence and horror than we had in the UK, to the extent that many Doctor Who stories were banned there unless censored or moved to a post watershed time slot. One benefit of this was that we got a lot of censored clips from stories which no longer exist.

The image of Hartnell comes from The Space Museum.

The story arrived on DVD in the UK in 2006 with a cover put together by Clayton Hickman. It was part of The Beginning box set, along with An Unearthly Child and The Edge of Destruction.

In the US, the story was packaged with The Edge of Destruction in their own version of The Beginning box set. It and An Unearthly Child have the same large Hartnell image on their covers, but the first story has Susan bottom right, where this has the Doctor, Ian and Susan surrounded by Daleks.

The US box set had as its overall cover the UK image for The Daleks.