List of Doctor Who novelisations

Dr. Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker, published in 1964, was the very first Doctor Who novelisation. Illustrated is the first paperback edition published in 1965.

The first three Doctor Who serials to be novelised were the First Doctor serials The Daleks, The Web Planet, and The Crusade (published as Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (1964), Doctor Who and the Zarbi (1965), and Doctor Who and the Crusaders (1966)). They were published in hardback by Frederick Muller Ltd; the first was also published in paperback by Armada.

Between 1973 and 1991, Target Books published almost every Doctor Who television story that was originally broadcast from 1963 to 1989 as a novelisation, starting with new editions of the Frederick Muller books. When Target was closed down by Virgin Books in 1991, three further novelisations—two based on the 1960s Dalek serials The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks, and one based on the 1993 radio serial The Paradise of Death—were added to the range. Reprints under the Target imprint continued through 1994.

BBC Books published a novelisation of the 1996 Doctor Who television movie. Random House, through its United Kingdom division, acquired a 90% stake in Virgin Books (including Target) in March 2007.[1] In November 2009, Virgin became an independent imprint within Ebury Publishing, a division of the Random House Group.[2] In 2006, Ebury Publishing acquired a majority shareholding in BBC Books.[3] From 2012 to 2019, BBC Books published novelisations of the 1970s and 1980s serials Target was unable to publish (The Pirate Planet, City of Death, Shada, Resurrection of the Daleks, and Revelation of the Daleks).[4][5][6][7][8] Revelation of the Daleks is (as of November 2019) the most recent novelisation to be published and is Eric Saward's own novelisation of his 1985 serial.

Starting in 2018, BBC Books published novelisations of selected 2000s and 2010s episodes as part of the Target range.[9][10] Paperback editions of City of Death, The Pirate Planet, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, and the 1996 television movie were also added to the revived Target range.[11][8][10] Pearson Education published adaptations of four Eleventh Doctor and six Twelfth Doctor stories for use in schools.

In addition to the television serials, three scripts from the cancelled Season 23—The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil and Mission to Magnus—were novelised. A short series entitled The Companions of Doctor Who comprised the novelisation of K-9 and Company along with the original works Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma and Harry Sullivan's War.

Besides The Paradise of Death, Target also novelised two additional non-televised stories: the radio play Slipback and the audio story The Pescatons.

A novelisation by Barry Letts of a further radio drama, The Ghosts of N-Space, was published as part of the Virgin Missing Adventures range in 1995, as was the novelisation of the independent spin-off Downtime; in the same year, the Virgin New Adventures range published a novelisation of Shakedown: The Return of the Sontarans.

In 2005, BBC Audio released unabridged audiobook versions of the first three Frederick Muller novelisations, read by actor William Russell (who played Ian Chesterton). Beginning in September 2007, they began releasing further unabridged audiobooks of the Target novelisations at a rate of approximately two every two months; the books themselves remain officially out of print. BBC Books began reprinting selected titles starting in July 2011.[12]

Although Target endeavoured to commission the original scriptwriters to novelise their own stories, this was not always possible. As a result, many books in the Target line were written by Terrance Dicks.[13] During the late 1970s to early 1980s, Target, which classified the novelisations as children's fiction, imposed a page limit of 128 pages. Some books (particularly several by Dicks) even fell short of this limit. By the late 1980s, however, the page cap had been lifted, although John Peel was still required to split his novelisation of the epic 12-episode The Daleks' Master Plan into two volumes because the manuscript was too long.

Target began numbering its novelisations from 1983, with almost all of the first seventy-three books being numbered as reprints came out. The first new book to be numbered was Time-Flight. Target's numbering did not initially reflect original publication order (which would have placed David Whitaker's Doctor Who and the Daleks book first), but rather was conducted in alphabetical order, so that the novelisation of The Abominable Snowmen was numbered "1". The numbering likewise had no connection with production or broadcast order. Due to print delays and last-minute reordering of publication schedules, some of the later books were released out of numeric order. The revived "Target Collection" from BBC Books is not numbered.

These three books based on First Doctor serials were first published in hardcover by Frederick Muller Ltd.

This list of novelisations published by Target, or its successors, is sortable by TV story number, its number in the "Doctor Who Library", title, Doctor, author, and Hardcover or paperback publication dates. Hardcover editions were published by Target's parent companies (Allen Wingate, W.H. Allen, BBC Books). The Audiobook column indicates whether an abridged or unabridged audiobook has been released. See List of Doctor Who audiobooks.

In 1996 BBC Books took over the Doctor Who licence and have published a number of novelisations based on TV stories and webcasts, a few being written exclusively for audiobook publication by their audio company. Books published under the Target Collection banner are listed above.

Pearson Education has published novelisations for those learning to read the English language.

A number of fan-run publications have published unofficial novelisations of stories Target was not able to secure rights to. Obverse Books has also published unofficial novelisations to raise money for charity. Obverse also published "novelisations" of fictional Peter Cushing Dr. Who films.[66]

A number of novelisations were released in omnibus editions, mostly by book clubs.

In 1988–1989, W. H. Allen's Star imprint published a number of the Target novelisations in a format of two novelisations in one book in a range titled Doctor Who Classics. These were produced by fixing together two Target books with a new front page and outer cover. The pairings were:

The first of the Target reissues featured new cover artwork by Chris Achilleos, who went on to illustrate over 30 of the novelisations throughout the 1970s.[87] British artist Andrew Skilleter created much of the cover art from 1979 to 1994, along with video covers and other merchandise.[88][89] His work on Doctor Who was showcased in his 1995 volume Blacklight: The Art of Andrew Skilleter.[89][90]

Generally, Doctor Who stories that have been broadcast will be adapted into print, rather than vice versa. There have been some occasions where print media has been adapted for the screen or formed inspiration for television episodes.

• The 1995 New Adventures novel Human Nature, written by Paul Cornell and featuring the Seventh Doctor, was adapted by the same author for the 2007 series of Doctor Who as a two part story with the episode titles "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood", with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.
• Steven Moffat based his 2007 episode "Blink" upon a 2005 short story, "What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow", originally published in Doctor Who Annual 2006.
• Gareth Roberts reused his concept from a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story as the basis for an episode of the same name "The Lodger", which was transmitted as part of Series 5 (2010), featuring Matt Smith.

• List of Torchwood novels and audio books
• List of Doctor Who novelists
• Dalek comic strips, illustrated annuals and graphic novels
• List of television series made into books

• On Target, a guide to Target novelisations
• The TARDIS Library: Books A comprehensive guide to all official & unofficial Doctor Who novelisations and other books ever published