I’m a collector of Indiana Jones. For the last few years I’ve been looking for all the stuff I can. I’ve been trying to finish collecting all the Young Indiana Jones books, there are a lot of them. Now I’m down to one, called Young Indiana Jones and the Mask of the Madman. I’ve looked on bookfinder.com and abebooks.com, and neither one has a copy.
I have looked in other places too, I’ve even looked by ISBN but to no avail. EBay doesn’t have one, nor any other place. Is it possible that the book doesn’t exist even though it’s listed everywhere? While googling I’ve seen a couple of other people looking for this book, but yet there are no cover pictures. Do books get made, given a title, ISBN and all that and then get pulled?
I would love to get my hands on a copy, but that’s kind of hard if it doesn’t exist.
On a related note, I’m also looking for an old Indiana Jones computer game called Revenge of the Ancients. I know this one exists as I’ve seen it on eBay but have missed it the last couple of times. I’d rather have the book right now though, but if someone knows a place to get old computer games that would be great.
Go to a good used bookstore and ask if they do book searches. I worked in a bookstore that did such searches for customers, as a service. (IIRC, they charged only the price of the book.) They’d probably use a lot of the same resources you could, on the internet, but it’s possible they’d have connections you do not have access to.
Yes, it happens frequently enough to be a concern for collectors and bibliographers that books are announced and then never published. (Or published and not distributed or pulled almost immediately.) This often happens to the last book in a series that is about to be canceled, which seems to fit this title. I checked and it’s the last of 18 in the Young Indiana Jones adventure novels series.
You’d need to find some specialized dealer who would know whether the title made it out the door or even got bound in preprint editions. If it ever existed, some dealer will get their hands on it at some point. I bought the paperback version of Gnome Press’ E. E. Smith title The Vortex Blasters even though only a half dozen experimental copies were bound and none were formally sold. Just put out want lists everywhere. You may have to wait a quarter century, like I did, but if you have the patience you’ll find it.
It may never have been published. In at least two cases I was looking for a book that I later found had never actually been printed. Both were announced as part of a series and thereby acquired a paper trail (one is still listed on Amazon). But in one case the earlier books in the series didn’t sell well and the series was cancelled before the later books were published. In the other case, an author was contracted to write a book for an ongoing series but never turned in the final work.
It does seem to fit this book. I have, or at least have on order, the rest of the series, but after looking for this one I haven’t seen any other information on it.
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You’d need to find some specialized dealer who would know whether the title made it out the door or even got bound in preprint editions. If it ever existed, some dealer will get their hands on it at some point. I bought the paperback version of Gnome Press’ E. E. Smith title The Vortex Blasters even though only a half dozen experimental copies were bound and none were formally sold. Just put out want lists everywhere. You may have to wait a quarter century, like I did, but if you have the patience you’ll find it.
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How does one find a specialized book dealer? I live in just north of DC so I’m sure there are some around here. But for me finding them might be a pain. I do know of one book store in Frederick, MD called Wonder Book that might be able to help, but I’m sure there is something in DC.
peri I have a copy of the game, but I would like to get a physical copy of the game. You know those crazy collectors of things? Well that’s me with Indy.
Check the dealers on bookfinder or abebooks who sell other hard-to-find YIJ books. The more unusual titles they sell, the more likely they are to be specialists. At least they might very well know the answer.
I think that it may indeed be the case that it never made it into print. I checked OCLC WorldCat to see if any libraries owned copies. It showed 4 copies, including one at a library near me. But upon checking the records at the four libraries listed, none of them actually had it. I think the OCLC listing was based on orders placed by the libraries. Another hint is that the OCLC listing doesn’t show a page count like it usually does for books in print.
The specialty dealers would be the only way to go if there happened to be preprint copies available.
Well I’m still looking into the book, but it seems that someone else has contacted the publisher and it never was produced. Now I’ll have to look and see if I can find any preprint copies. I did put my wish list into Powell’s so I’ll see what comes of that. Thanks for all the help.
The OCLC record is for CIP (cataloging in publication), created based on information given by the publisher before the book is published. The projected date of publication is September 1995. My guess is also that the book was never published.
Actually I’ve seen a couple of publish dates for April 1, 1996. I wonder if it was supposed to be an April Fool’s joke. I also wrote a short email to Ms. Stine, I will see if she ever gets back to me, but I’m sure she gets plenty of emails so I’m not holding my breath.
It’s generally agreed that the definitive work on this subject is “Locating That Hard To Find Book” by Mario Murphy. Though published in 1932, it still contains relevant information even in today’s Internet Age. Regrettably, due to the passage of time, and the fact that very few volumes were ever published, it is becoming an ever-increasingly difficult book to find and much-valued by collectors.
Okay it’s a whoosh but I’m amazed nobody has said anything like this so far. I just thought injecting a little humor might be good idea right about now.
And Edward the Head, I hope you succeed in finding that book.
