# Doubled book titles -or- when did book titles stop having "or" in them **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [May 7, 2022, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doubled-book-titles-or-when-did-book-titles-stop-having-or-in-them/964126 "2022-05-07T20:29:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 5
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2022, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doubled-book-titles-or-when-did-book-titles-stop-having-or-in-them/964126/5 "2022-05-07T22:08:27Z")
Just from observation, the practice pretty much ended at the end of the 19th century and lasted only on lesser books. A quick check tells me the only Dickens’ novel to have an “or” was _Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy’s Progress_, from 1841. None of Trollope’s books did or George Eliot’s, and they both wrote in 1850s. On the American side, Nathanial Hawthorne didn’t use “or” and he started in the 1850s (except for 1828’s _Fanshawe_ and that also lacked an “or”). However, Harriet Beech Stowe used the “or” off and on from _Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly_ (1852) through _We and our Neighbors; or, The Records of an Unfashionable Stree_t (1875). And only two of Louisa May Alcott’s books from 1868 to 1880 had “or”. But dime novels and weeklies continued to use an “or” straight through their end. I can find examples from the 1920s. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doubled-book-titles-or-when-did-book-titles-stop-having-or-in-them/964126)._