Remember when your high school summer reading list included Atticus
, and The Last Man in Europe
? You will once you see what these books were renamed before they hit bookshelves.
1. The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald went through quite a few titles for his most well-known book before deciding on The Great Gatsby
. If he hadn’t arrived at that title, high school kids would be pondering the themes of Trimalchio in West Egg; Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires; On the Road to West Egg; Under the Red, White, and Blue; Gold-Hatted Gatsby;
or The High-Bouncing Lover.
George Orwell’s publisher didn’t feel the title to his novel The Last Man in Europe
was terribly commercial and recommended using the other title he had been kicking around—1984
3. Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand referred to her magnum opus as The Strike
for quite some time. In 1956, a year before the book was released, she decided the title gave away too much plot detail. Her husband suggested Atlas Shrugged
, and it stuck.
The title of Bram Stoker’s famous Gothic novel sounded more like a spoof before he landed on Dracula
—one of the names Stoker considered was The Dead Un-Dead
5. The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway’s original title for The Sun Also Rises—Fiesta—
was used for foreign-language editions. But he changed the American English version to The Sun Also Rises
at the behest of his publisher.
It’s because of Frank Sinatra that we use the phrase “catch-22” today. Well, sort of. Author Joseph Heller tried out Catch-11
, but because the original Ocean’s Eleven
movie was newly in theaters, it was scrapped to avoid confusion. He also wanted Catch-18
, but, again, the recent publication of Leon Uris’ Mila 18
made him switch titles to avoid confusion. The number 22 was finally chosen because it was 11 doubled.
7. To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird
was simply Atticus
before Harper Lee decided the title focused too narrowly on one character.
8. Pride and Prejudice
An apt precursor to the title Jane Austen finally decided on for her most beloved novel
was First Impressions
9. The Secret Garden
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" Secretly, apparently. Mistress Mary
, taken from the classic nursery rhyme, was the working title for Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden
Originally called Ulysses in Dublin
, James Joyce’s book of short stories, Dubliners
, featured characters that would later appear in his epic Ulysses
a few years later.