Books about ABBA and related subjects

The 2014 book ABBA – The Backstage Stories was instigated by Ingmarie Halling, ABBA's Make-up and Wardrobe Supervisor during their tours in 1977, 1979 and 1980 (i.e. all their tours outside the Nordic countries, except the 1974 shows in Germany and Austria).

Centred around Ingmarie's memories from the tours, and featuring previously unseen pictures from those tours, the parallel thread in the book is the other aspects of ABBA's visual presentation: the album sleeves, the costumes, and the videos. These texts were written by me. It all adds up to a book about the people who helped ABBA present themselves to their audience, and the tales they have to tell about their work – in other words, the backstage stories.

The book has plenty of commentary input from Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Frida, each of whom has also contributed a foreword.

In the UK and in other English-speaking countries the book was published by Carlton under the title ABBA – The Treasures, with a completely different cover, although the contents are the same, except they have included a poster as well. Carlton also has an imprint called Sevenoaks, which has published the book with an alternate cover and under yet another title: ABBA – The Backstage Story; this edition is only sold through UK shop The Works. However, Bonnier Fakta in Sweden has also published a number of English-language copies of the book. These feature the same design and title as the Swedish edition.

HOW THE BOOK CAME ABOUT
Ingmarie Halling had an idea for a book: to share her memories of ABBA's tours in book form, and bring in the background stories of the group's legendary costumes as well. The idea came to her through her involvement as Curator of the touring ABBAWORLD exhibition (which later morphed into ABBA The Museum, opening in Stockholm in May 2013).

She brought her idea to Swedish publisher Bonnier Fakta, and after discussing the idea they reached the conclusion that the book would be even better if they could widen the perspective a little. Both Ingmarie and the publisher knew me and my previous work with various ABBA projects, so they asked me to be a part of this new book.

For my part, I had long harboured the idea of doing some kind of project about the visual side of ABBA: the costumes, the album sleeves, the videos – in other words, how they presented themselves to the world. I thought it could be a book, or perhaps a television programme - or both. Eventually it turned into the television programme ABBA – Absolute Image.

I now brought these ideas into Ingmarie's book project – they were a natural fit, since it all boiled down to the same theme: ABBA presenting themselves to the outside world, as opposed to the work they did in the enclosed environment of the cramped recording studio.

I already had plenty of research done on the subject, and I finally got the opportunity to use this in book form. There were quite a few comments and pieces of information here and there that even the most ardent ABBA fan won't have heard before. I also did additional interviews with people who had worked with the visual side of ABBA, some of whom hadn't been interviewed at length before, such as photographer Ola Lager, who did all the ABBA album sleeves between 1974 and 1979 (except ABBA – The Album, of course, which featured a drawing), and even Peter Wiking, who designed the Ring Ring sleeve. Some of their stories were definitely completely new to me.

Essentially, this is very much Ingmarie's book, however, and several chapters in it are devoted to the tours and the stories about what went on onstage and backstage, as told by her and other people involved, including the ABBA members: commentaries and reflections from Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Frida were interspersed throughout the book. Also, there were a number of previously unpublished "private" pictures from the tours.

THE FACSIMILES
Last, but certainly not least, there were also a number of fascinating facsimiles from Ingmarie's personal archive. I'm not talking about ordinary memorabilia, but documents, letters, hand-written notes etc. that were actually written or used by members of the ABBA entourage. You can't get more "backstage" than that!

THE VARIOUS TITLES AND EDITIONS – A COMPLICATED STORY...
Some of the editions published outside Sweden have titles and covers that are markedly different from how the book was conceived. Here follows an attempt to list the various editions and how they differ. Note: It's only the titles and cover pictures that differ (and, of course, the language), the inside contents are identical, with one exception only (as far as I'm aware): Carlton's and Sevenoaks' UK editions, as well as the Italian edition, come with a black & white poster featuring ABBA onstage in 1979.

Ian Cole's ABBA Omnibus site displays all the different editions.

SWEDEN
ABBA – The Backstage Stories (Swedish-language edition)
Published March 18, 2014, by Bonnier Fakta. This is the original edition of this book, as conceived by the authors and the publisher.

ABBA – The Backstage Stories (English-language edition)
Published March 18, 2014, by Bonnier Fakta. This is an English-language edition of the book, which sports the same cover as the Swedish edition, only sold in Sweden. The translation is the same as used in the British editions (see below).

ABBA – The Backstage Stories (second Swedish-language edition)
Published April 10, 2018, by Bonnier Fakta. This was a more basic edition of the Swedish version of the book. The material I contributed to the original edition remains in this version, but I didn't have any further involvement.

The 2018 edition is more like a "normal" book, without the slipcase. The envelopes containing various vintage documents are gone, but those documents are now presented on regular book pages instead. There are also a number of new pictures, plus a chapter about ABBA The Museum.

GREAT BRITAIN
ABBA – The Treasures (English-language edition)
Published by Carlton, March 6, 2014. Title and cover differ from the editions published in Sweden, but contents are identical, except this edition also features a poster.

ABBA – The Backstage Story (English-language edition)
Published by Sevenoaks, a Carlton-owned imprint, circa May/June 2014 (?). This was only sold through UK retailer The Works, and this is why it has an alternate cover and title. However, the contents are identical to Carlton's regular edition, including the poster.

UNITED STATES
ABBA – The Treasures (English-language edition)
Published by Carlton, August 5, 2014. Identical to Carlton's British edition.

DENMARK
ABBA – backstage-historierne (Danish-language edition)
Published by Nyt Nordisk Forlag, March 25, 2014.

GERMANY
ABBA Backstage (German-language edition).
Published by Heel Verlag, March 31, 2014 (this is the date listed on Amazon, but it seems it was actually published in mid-March).

NORWAY
ABBA backstage: historiene, bildene, minnene (Norwegian-language edition).
Published by Kagge Forlag, August 29, 2014.

ITALY
ABBA (Italian-language edition), features a cover similar to Carlton's English-language edition. Published by 24 ORE Cultura, October 2014.

RUSSIA
ABBA. История легенды (Russian-language edition). Published by Eksmo, November 2018. Based on the original 2014 edition of the book, and does not contain the vintage document facsimiles, neither as inserts nor as additional pages in the book.