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TheVirgin Decalog books were collections ofshort stories published byVirgin Publishing based on thetelevision seriesDoctor Who: they gained their name from the fact that each volume contained ten stories (although the last collection contains eleven). Five volumes were published between 1994 and September 1997, although volumes 4 and 5 did not featurethe Doctor or any other non-Virgincopyrighted characters. This is because theBBC decided not to renew Virgin's licence to produce original fiction featuring the Doctor or any characters featured in the TV series (Virgin transitioned to featuring characters created for literature over which the BBC had no rights). Following this, the BBC began producing their ownDoctor Who fiction, including short stories under the nameShort Trips.

The first volume of stories published wasDecalog (Virgin, 17 March 1994), edited by Mark Stammers andStephen James Walker. It contained the following stories:

The StoryPlayback by Stephen James Walker was a short linking piece that recurred between the other stories, detailing the story of an amnesiac claiming to be the Doctor having his memories restored by going through the items in his pockets: each item relates to one of the stories.

The next volume wasDecalog 2: Lost Property (Virgin Publishing, 20 July 1995), again edited by Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker. This volume abandoned the linking story concept used inDecalog, and instead concentrated on having all its stories written on the same theme – a property that the Doctor owns somewhere or when in the universe. It contained the stories:

The final Decalog collection before Virgin lost their licence to use The Doctor and characters from the 1963–89 series was calledDecalog 3: Consequences (Virgin Publishing, 18 July 1996), and was joint edited byJustin Richards and Andy Lane. It introduced a new idea for linking the stories whereby each story would contain an element from the previous and subsequent stories, and the first contained an element from the last and vice versa. It contained the following stories:

This was Steven Moffat's firstDoctor Who work. He later went on to write for the 2005 revival of the television series, and would become head writer for the series from the 2010 season onwards. Jackie Marshall was an established writer ofDoctor Whofan fiction at the time. DeCandido went on to write novels for theStar Trek franchise. Moffat would later use many plot elements fromContinuity Errors as the basis forthe 2010 Christmas Special, as well as forRiver Song's backstory in "Let's Kill Hitler".

The first Decalog collection after Virgin lost their licence to use Doctor Who TV characters was calledDecalog 4: Re-Generations (Virgin Publishing, 15 May 1997), and was again joint edited by Justin Richards and Andy Lane. In order to try to keep the audience of previous Decalogs even though the Doctor could no longer appear in the stories, it was decided to theme the collection around the family history of one of the Doctor's companion Roz Forrester. As this companion had been created by co-editor Andy Lane for theVirgin New Adventures, there were no copyright issues in including her. It contained the following stories:

The final Decalog collection was calledDecalog 5: Wonders (Virgin Publishing, 18 September 1997), and was jointly edited by Paul Leonard and Jim Mortimore. This time, all but one story were free-standing science fiction pieces on the theme of "the Ten Wonders of the Universe", without direct connection to theDoctor Who universe. One story,The Judgement of Solomon byLawrence Miles, however features former New Adventures companion,Bernice Summerfield. The collection contained the following stories:

Following the publication of this book, Virgin produced no further Decalog collections.

• Book series introduced in 1994
• Novels based on Doctor Who
• Science fiction book series
• 1990s books
• Virgin Books books

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