One of the greatest novels in all of American literature was originally titled Catch-18. Then Joseph Heller found out that a novel about World War II called Mila 18 already existed. So he changed his book to Catch-22. And guess which American classic was originally titled, Something That Happened, before its author read a Robert Burns poem about a farmer who destroys the home of a little mouse? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Working Titles of Famous Books”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
One of the greatest novels in modern American literature was originally titled Catch 18.
Oh, Catch 22.
Yes.
Oh, nice.
Yes, it turns out that there was another novel about World War II published about the same time, Mila 18, and so author Joseph Heller changed Catch 18 to Catch 22.
Smart.
I have a couple more original working titles of books, so let’s see if you can guess the new title that went on to become famous.
Bring it on, lady.
All right. Here’s the first one.
The original title of this 1937 novel was Something That Happened.
The Sun Also Rises? I don’t know. I have no idea.
Good guess.
I’ll give you a hint. John Steinbeck later changed the name after reading a poem by Robert Burns about a farmer who accidentally destroys the home of Little Mouse when plowing his field.
That’s nice. I will love him and hold him and call him George.
Hey, you do a good Lenny.
Yep, from the Robert Burns poem with the line, the best laid schemes of mice and men gang-aftically.
Here’s another one.
This 1949 novel was originally called The Last Man in Europe, and it depicted a world gone awry 35 years into the future.
Dun-dun-dun, 1984.
Exactly.
Do the math, 1984.
Well, later in the show, we’re going to be talking about books that we’re recommending to people as holiday gifts, and we’ll talk some more about working titles of books that eventually got discarded.
We’re taking your language calls at 877-929-9673.
And we’re reading your emails at words@waywordradio.org.
And we’re bumping up your tweets with big fat hearts on Twitter @wayword.
