The Black Archive

The Black Archive are a series of critical monographs about selected individual Doctor Who stories, from the series' earliest history to the present day.

You may wish to consult Black Archive (disambiguation) for other, similarly-named pages.

Rather than focusing on behind-the-scenes production history as much Doctor Who fan scholarship has done, the series aimed to analyse and explore the stories as broadcast.

The series was published by Obverse Books. Its editing team was led by Philip Purser-Hallard, along with Stuart Douglas, Paul Simpson, and Paul Driscoll. It was named after the Black Archive, a museum of alien artefacts first seen in Enemy of the Bane.

The series' first four titles were published simultaneously in 1 March 2016. Following titles, from Image of the Fendahl up to Full Circle were released each two months. Starting with Carnival of Monsters in February 2018, titles were released monthly; this ended in December 2020 with the release of the fiftieth volume.^[1]

In 2018, Obverse Books launched a sister range to The Black Archive called The Silver Archive that examined television series other than Doctor Who.^[2]

Published titles[[edit] | [edit source]]

#	Title	Writer	Release date
1	Rose	Jon Arnold	1 March 2016
2	The Massacre	James Cooray Smith
3	The Ambassadors of Death	LM Myles
4	Dark Water / Death in Heaven	Philip Purser-Hallard
5	Image of the Fendahl	Simon Bucher-Jones	2 May 2016
6	Ghost Light	Jonathan Dennis	4 July 2016
7	The Mind Robber	Andrew Hickey	1 September 2016
8	Black Orchid	Ian Millsted	1 November 2016
9	The God Complex	Paul Driscoll	1 January 2017
10	Scream of the Shalka	Jon Arnold	1 March 2017
11	The Evil of the Daleks	Simon Guerrier	1 May 2017
12	Pyramids of Mars	Kate Orman	1 July 2017
13	Human Nature / The Family of Blood	Naomi Jacobs, Philip Purser-Hallard	1 September 2017
14	The Ultimate Foe	James Cooray Smith	31 October 2017
15	Full Circle	John Toon	3 January 2018
16	Carnival of Monsters	Ian Potter	1 February 2018
17	The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit	Simon Bucher-Jones	4 March 2018
18	Marco Polo	Dene October	7 April 2018
19	The Eleventh Hour	Jon Arnold	1 May 2018
20	Face the Raven	Sarah Groenewegen	31 May 2018
21	Heaven Sent	Kara Dennison	3 July 2018
22	Hell Bent	Alyssa Franke	1 August 2018
23	The Curse of Fenric	Una McCormack	3 September 2018
24	The Time Warrior	Matthew Kilburn	1 October 2018
25	Doctor Who (1996)	Paul Driscoll	5 November 2018
26	The Dæmons	Matt Barber	5 December 2018
27	The Face of Evil	Thomas Rodebaugh	3 January 2019
28	Love & Monsters	Niki Haringsma	4 February 2019
29	The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon	John Toon	4 March 2019
30	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	Jonathan Morris	2 April 2019
31	Warriors' Gate	Frank Collins	2 May 2019
32	The Romans	Jacob Edwards	3 June 2019
33	Horror of Fang Rock	Matthew Guerrieri	1 July 2019
34	Battlefield	Philip Purser-Hallard	5 August 2019
35	Timelash	Phil Pascoe	2 September 2019
36	Listen	Dewi Small	October 2019
37	Kerblam!	Naomi Jacobs, Thomas Rodebaugh	1 November 2019
38	The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords	James Mortimer	December 2019
39	The Silurians	Stacey Smith?	January 2020
40	The Underwater Menace	James Cooray Smith	6 April 2020
41	Vengeance on Varos	Jonathan Dennis
42	The Rings of Akhaten	William Shaw
43	The Robots of Death	Fiona Moore	May 2020
44	The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang	Philip Bates	June 2020
45	The Deadly Assassin	Andrew Orton	July 2020
46	The Awakening	David Evans-Powell	August 2020
47	The Stones of Blood	Katrin Thier	7 September 2020
48	Arachnids in the UK	Sam Maleski	1 October 2020
49	The Night of the Doctor	James Cooray Smith	6 November 2020
50	The Day of the Doctor	Alasdair Stuart	24 December 2020
51	Earthshock	Brian J Robb	4 February 2021
52	The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos	James F McGrath	10 March 2021
53	The Hand of Fear	Simon Bucher-Jones	21 June 2021
54	Dalek	Billy Seguire	30 July 2021
55	Invasion of the Dinosaurs	Jon Arnold	9 October 2021
56	The Haunting of Villa Diodati	Philip Purser-Hallard	26 November 2021
57	Vincent and the Doctor	Paul Driscoll	30 January 2022
58	The Talons of Weng-Chiang	Dale Smith	4 April 2022
59	Kill the Moon	Darren Mooney	1 June 2022
60	The Sun Makers	Lewis Batson	8 August 2022
61	Paradise Towers	John Toon	22 October 2022
62	Kinda	Frank Collins	1 December 2022
63	Flux	Alasdair Stuart, James Cooray Smith, Emma Reed, Philip Purser-Hallard, Oliver Tomkins, James Mortimer, Matt Hills	10 February 2023
64	The Girl Who Died	Tom Marshall	1 April 2023
65	The Myth Makers	Ian Potter	4 June 2023
66	The Greatest Show in the Galaxy	Dale Smith	7 August 2023
67	The Edge of Destruction	Simon Guerrier	1 October 2023
68	The Happiness Patrol	Mike Stack	4 December 2023
69	Midnight	Philip Purser-Hallard	1 February 2024
70	Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children	Ryan Bradley	8 April 2024
71	The Aztecs	Doris V Sutherland	1 June 2024
72	Silence in the Library / The Forest of the Dead	Dale Smith	26 August 2024
73	Under the Lake / Before the Flood	Kevin S Decker, Ryan C Parrey	17 October 2024
74	A Christmas Carol	Jaime Beckwith, Leslie Grace McMurtry	6 December 2024

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

On 30 October 2024, Obverse Books released a bundle of 10 Classic Series Black Archive books in electronic format, titled the Black Archive Classic Series Bundle.^[3]
On 11 November 2024, Obverse Books released a second bundle of 10 Classic Series Black Archive books in electronic format, titled the Black Archive Classic Series Bundle 2.^[4]