Trivia / Nursery Crime

• Development Hell: The third book has been promised since at least 2006 and as of 2023 was still unpublished. Fforde has published other books in the interim.
• Executive Meddling: The first book itself was originally going to be called Nursery Crime (as noted in The Well of Lost Plots at the end) but was changed due to marketing concerns.
• What Could Have Been: Fforde had been writing The Big Over Easy for over a decade prior to its actual publication, and a lot of stuff changed during that time. Jack was originally going to be the Watson to Friedland Chymes's Sherlock Holmes, which is even called out at one point in early narration. A few drafts had Friedland as a Posthumous Character, and all of them indicated he was meant to be more heroic, rather than the Dirty Cop Miles Gloriosus we see in the final product. Another opener showcased the moments of Humpty Dumpty's death, and a third variant showed the legal proceedings in the Three Pigs murder trial.