Tintin in the Land of the Soviets

This first adventure of Tintin, the boy reporter, appeared in 1929 in a children's supplement to a Belgian daily newspaper, Le Vingtième Siècle. Hergé's satire on the Soviet state was very much of its time. Soviet propaganda to persuade the world outside Russia that the economy was booming was a particular target for Hergé, as were the activities of the secret police, the OGPU.

Publication in Le Petit Vingtième began on 10 January 1929. In 1930 the adventure was issued in album form, now a very rare book greatly sought after, the 500 copies being numbered and signed "Tintin et Milou". There were, it is believed, nine subsequent editions, differing only in the layout of the print on the title page.


Tintin in the Congo

Tintin au Congo first appeared as a serial from 5 June 1930, over a period of a year, in "Le Petit Vingtième", the children's supplement to the Brusssels newspaper "Le Vingtième Siècle". In 1931 the story was published in book form by Les Editions du Petit Vingtième and a few months later by Editions Casterman of Tournai.

In his portrayal of the Belgian Congo, the young Hergè reflects the colonial attitudes of the time. He himself admitted that he depicted his Africans according to the bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period. The same may be said of his treatment of big-game hunting and his attitude towards animals.


Tintin in America

Tintin in America is the twentieth volume in the Tintin series to be published in the United States. It brings the boy detective across the Atlantic for the first time to visit the New World of Chicago gangsters and Al Capone, the world of cowboys and Indians and the Wild West. Nothing daunted, Tintin and Snowy make their way thought hilarity and danger to yet another triumph of virtue over crime.


Cigars of the Pharaoh

Scores of Egyptologists have tried to find the lost tomb of the Pharaoh Kih-Oskh; every single one has vanished. When Tintin and Snowy meet the eccentric Egyptologist, Doctor Sarcophagus, they are soon involved in the search themselves - and find that the tomb contains a more sinister secret than sand and mummies. Following the clue of a mysterious symbol on a cigar band Tintin and Snowy clash with a gang of drug smugglers are off on a dizzy chase to Arabia and India, plunging headlong into another dangerous battle of wits with an international gangster.


The Blue Lotus

Historical Note
Herge first published Le Lotus Bleu in the magazine Le Petit Vingtieme in Brussels in 1934-5: the story itself is set in 1931. At that time Japanese troops were occupying parts of the Chinese mainland, and Shanghai, the great seaport at the mouth of the Yangtze Kiang, possessed an International Settlement, a trading base in China for Western nations, administered by the British and Americans. Herge based his narrative freely upon the events of the time, including the blowing-up of the South Manchurian railway, which led to further incursions by Japan into China and ultimately to Japan's resignation from the League of Nations in 1933.