The Three Investigators
HOLLOW TREE PRESS
Print on Demand
Paperback & Kindle Edition
Titles #1-9 and #11
The Ten T3I Classics by Robert Arthur
Available to ORDER NOW from
AMAZON or BARNES & NOBLE!
In the summer of 2024, for the 60th anniversary of the series, Robert Arthur's daughter, Elizabeth, made all ten of her father's Three Investigators books available to order in a brand-new print on demand paperback edition from Hollow Tree Press through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. These large-size paperback books measure approximately 8-1/2" x 5-1/2", just slightly larger than all previous Random House paperback editions/formats. Each book is of a different color and the covers were designed by Liz Arthur. The texts used in each book are the REVISED TEXTS from 1984 and 1985 when Alfred Hitchcock was edited out of the series and replaced by the fictional movie director Reginald Clarke in the first book and by the fictional thriller/mystery author Hector Sebastian in the rest of the books. There are no internal illustrations in these books. These books originally priced at $10.95 each at Amazon and $11.95 each at Barnes & Noble but, as of January 2025, each paperback book is currently priced at $12.95, and the eBooks are priced at $7.99 each.
For this new edition, the books have been re-numbered. Originally, the Robert Arthur books were numbered 1-9 and "Talking Skull" was #11 in the series. Since this edition is comprised solely of the ten books penned by Robert Arthur, "Talking Skull" has been re-numbered as the tenth title in the series. Each book contains a nice 2-page biography of Robert Arthur. Liz Arthur and her husband, Steven Bauer, added another nice feature to this new edition: each book has nine or ten pages of "Endnotes" which explore three topics found in the books. For example, the Endnotes in "Terror Castle" discuss Silent Movies, Salvage Yards, and Rolls-Royces.
The books as published by Amazon and B&N are almost identical to each other but there are some very subtle differences:
1. The ISBN's used for each title differ between Amazon and B&N.
2. The colors of the B&N books are slightly richer and more vibrant in color than those produced by Amazon.
3. The books produced by Amazon have a faint indentation on the front and rear covers alongside the spine.
4. Books produced by Amazon will have the date the book was manufactured imprinted inside the book.
This new edition was first made available on June 10, 2024, through Amazon. Within a few days, the first orders started arriving to customers and an unfortunate error was discovered. Titles #6-10 were all incorrectly printed with "The Mystery of the Green Ghost" on the spines! Steven Bauer was notified of this error on June 13th, and he immediately took action to correct the error. By June 17th, Amazon was shipping the corrected books and customers who had received the error copies could return them for a full refund or replacement. He didn't break it down as to exactly how many misprinted copies of each title were sold and shipped but, according to Steven Bauer, 140 copies misprinted copies in total were shipped to customers. It is unknown how many of those 140 copies were returned to Amazon and destroyed. No doubt, going forward, collectors will covet having at least one example of this highly publicized misprint in their Three Investigators collections! On July 20, 2024, the books were also made available through Barnes & Noble.
Scroll down to see images of the spines and the error spines.
Click on each cover photo below to discover more specific information about each of these titles and their new Endnotes:
