If you ever read old spy thrillers and adventure novels, there’s often a point in which the Bad Guy demands some outrageous sum of money (or it’s revealed that the treasure that’s been discovered is worth some obscene amount), which, whilst staggering in 1958, appears somewhat trivial by todays standards ("$12,000 worth of jewels and diamonds? That might just about pay off my credit card.")
Anyway, do publishers or authors ever “update” the monetary amounts mentioned in “contemporary” stories to give the modern reader a better idea of the expense involved? (ie, so Blofeld isn’t threatening to blow the world up over a couple of million dollars, which is the sort of money that any reasonably-sized corporation could come up with these days, instead of the kind of sum requiring almost every nation on Earth to empty their coffers)
There was a book written prior to decimalization in the UK, in which one girl gave her sister ten shillings to buy a birthday present.
Ten shillings would have been a fairly substantial amount for a schoolgirl.
The book, however, was published after decimalization came in. The publishers updated the currency, but didn’t change the actual amount to reflect the value.
My sister and I always used to giggle like crazy when we got to the bit where the character asks anxiously ‘Am I to spend all the 50p?’
Can’t remember which one it was but this features in one of the Austin Powers films. Dr Evil is threatening to destroy Washington (or wherever) and demands a ransom of - gasp - “One Million Dollars!”. His minions then prompt him to adjust this and he puts it up to some ridiculous amount .
One particular title kept being updated for inflation until it was finally discontinued: Johnny Hart’s BC collection, “Life is a XX Paperback.” The XX changed from “75 cent” to “95 cent” to “$1.25” to “$1.75,” etc. (and I’m probably missing a few) every time the book was rereleased. Worse, the title also has to say, “formerly Life is a (previous value) Paperback” – and list all the previous versions.
The book is out of print, and I’m sure this retitling is one reason.
One Million Dollars was a ridiculous small amount even before Dr. Evil was frozen. If it were Dr. Miguelito Loveless, that might have been a lot for him but by the 60s, it wasn’t still a pretty small ransom to demand.
Aside from the B.C. collection cited above, I don’t know of any examples of updating currency. (Although some more recent editions of significantly old books will give a modern equivalent in a footnote.)
I do notice that every time they reprint Stephen King’s The Stand, though, they change the years so that it’s taking place just a few year later than the publication date.
I believe Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has been updated like this - it was first published in 1964 - before currency decimalisation in England. The post-decimalisation editions refer to Charlie finding a 50 pence piece - the earlier editions must have said something else, as 50p pieces didn’t exist when it first came out. I believe there are also American editions referring to American currency.
Also (and also not quite what the OP is asking), Dr Seuss’ The Cat In The Hat Came Back exists in a couple of different versions - the UK edition refers to ‘Dad’s £7 shoes’, whereas I believe it’s ‘Dad’s $10 shoes’ in the American editions.
Further off the beaten track, the same book has parts where it looks very much as though the author has carefully constructed the verse so that it would rhyme regardless of whether Z is pronounced ‘Zee’ or ‘Zed’.
(see this thread for details)
I’ve seen updated board games that took “inflation” into account. I don’t understand why, as the prices never made much sense in the first place. Life, and Payday, IIRC.
This is the sort of thing I’m referring to- it’s patently obvious that 50p will not buy a reasonable-sized chocolate bar anymore. Even a £1 coin would be stretching it a bit, I’d think, but I must confess I don’t live in the UK and so I’m not au fait with current confectionery prices there.
Often they were screwed up anyway. I don’t care that it’s the 60’s, I don’t think the Jackal would have assassinated Charles De Gaulle and ended his career so he could never work again for half a million bucks. No way, no how.
I’ve seen at least one book that had footnotes giving the amount it would be circa the reprint date. I can’t recall which book it was, but it gave both American and British amounts.
This thread reminded me of a related phenomenon. In one edition of the children’s book Barrel of Fun, there is a “mind-reading trick” in which the advice given is to have someone take a dollar out of his wallet, find the date, and silently concentrate on that bit of info. You then guess that the bill was stamped “1939”, because “most dollar bills now in circulation are dated 1939. Very few people know this.”
In a later printing of the book, the same trick appears, but the “magic date” is now 1964. I wonder what the corresponding year would be if the book were to be issued anew. Hmmm, a random check of the ten singles in my wallet just revealed that each is a “Series 2003” specimen. I wonder if this result is reproducible throughout the USA.
I have a novel from Japan that has a page before the book starts that gives a rough idea of what the Yen to dollar equivalents are for the various amounts in the book at the time the story takes place (it’s got a lot of ransom amounts and so on).
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