Agatha Christie
The Quest to Read All Her Works...in publication order
Agatha Christie.
I have loved her writing ever since I was 9 years old and purchased a collection of 5 Hercule Poirot mysteries in a little slip cover box at a garage sale. I spent an entire summer reading those books and imagining the little dapper detective with his over-the-top moustache.
This love for Agatha Christie caused a domino effect of sorts. The love of the books started me on a path towards owning all the books. I carried a list of what I owned in my purse for years....checking it against titles I found at garage sales, thriftshops, library sales. In those days, the little town I lived in had no bookstore and there was no internet. So I saved up my chore money (and later my funds from an after school job) and any trip to the city also meant a trip to a bookshop....a new Christie! or maybe two if there was a sale at Waldenbooks.
But the problems started almost immediately....the quest for books, led to some hard brain work and research time back in those days. Some Christie novels were published under one name in the UK and a different title in the US. Some novels over time changed titles as people realized some words were just simply too rude for use....one book went from having the N word in the title...to soldiers....to Indians....to being called And Then There Were None, completely removing any possible cause for offense. Christie's works were reprinted and released by multiple book companies. Each publisher only listed the works they printed in the front of books....so I had had a very hard time finding a complete list of everything she wrote. Our small town library had zip for a reference department. In the days before the internet, developing a full publication list that included all titles for each book and trying to track down short stories in among all the different collections publishers put out was a true pain. Mostly impossible in a small, midwest, podunk town that didn't think a bookstore was necessary. Finally after I had a copy of "most'' of Christie's novels and a few of the short story collections....I gave up. By then college was looming and I just didn't have time to chase book lists.
Flash forward about 3 decades....I'm 50 years old. The kids are mostly grown. And....the lovely research tool called the internet is here to help! Plus so many avenues to find books online from the library and other sources to fill in gaps. I'm ready to read Christie! In honor of my slight OCD thoughts about the proper way to read through Christie (and an homage to my former hard work to try and make a list of all her books/stories), I'm trying as best I can to read in publication order. Even the short stories. I still have my stack of collected books -- over the years they moved with me everywhere I went. :) But now I can fill in gaps, easily get publication dates and information, and just enjoy her writing without carrying around a list, etc.
My blog has a lot of reviews on it that I share with others....but it's also my personal reading log and free self-therapy....so I'm going to be a bit overly detailed about my Christie reading. This has been a project in-progress for 41 years now. I'm going to go all out. :) Feel free to skip over these posts....most likely I am the only one who will be interested in my Christie Quest. :) That's ok. We all have a Thing -- this is mine.
So far, I have read:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule's first adventure. Published in 1920/21 - different dates in the UK and US.
The Secret Adversary (introduces Tommy & Tuppence) 1922
The Murder on the Links (HP. 1923)
I then made my first mistake....I moved on to The Man in the Brown Suit (1924) forgetting to check if there were any short stories published in 1920-1923. Turns out.....there were A LOT of short stories published in magazines in between novels.
So....in the interest of feeding my OCD as much as sanity can allow....I backtracked a bit. And I am reading/listening to The Man in the Brown Suit, while alternating with HP short stories published in 1923 (The Sketch magazine in the UK and following in other publications in the US). I found many of these first stories in Hercule Poirot's Early Cases, published first as a collection in 1974.
I'm listening to audio while reading along in my books....because it came to my attention that many of Christie's books have had a bit of editing done. I'm curious what things/words/actions have required editing...so I'm listening to newer unabridged audio while reading one of my old paperback copies. It sounds tedious...but it actually makes the reading more fun. I read and listen to a chapter or two every night right before bed...Christie Time. :) For the short stories, I listen to one or two during the day....listening to audio while following along in the book. It's just more enjoyable to have Hercule Poirot say the french parts that I skip over....as I don't know how to pronounce french properly. I envision David Suchet in my head....and listen to the voice actor saying the lines....all while reading the words right along with them in my head. :) I wouldn't go to all this trouble for another author....but after a 41 year quest, Christie deserves special care. :)
There is one book that I will skip. I just re-read and reviewed And Then There Were None (Or 10 Little Indians, among other names) in 2018. So I'm not going to read that one again. It's a bit ahead in the list -- published in 1939.
Because I am reading at least two editions of each book and story at the same time to compare editions -- audio/ebook/physical book together -- I'm going to review each novel and story separately, rather than as collections. And then I will rate collections once I've read all the stories gathered in them. Whew. 66 novels. 14 short story collections, gathering most of her 165 short stories. Plus, she wrote six romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Lots of reading ahead!
Huzzah! Finally!!!
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