Agatha Christie's Complete Secret Notebooks
Stories and Secrets of Murder in the Making
Published on 19. March 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
784 pages
978-0-00-812963-7 (ISBN)
Description
Agatha Christie's Complete Secret Notebooks brings together for the first time Secret Notebooks and Murder in the Making, two volumes that explore the fascinating contents of her 73 notebooks. This includes illustrations, deleted extracts, unused ideas, two unpublished Poirot stories and a lost Miss Marple.
When Agatha Christie died in 1976, aged 85, she had become the world's most popular author. With sales of more than two billion copies worldwide in more than 100 countries, she had achieved the impossible - more than one book every year since the 1920s, every one a bestseller.
So prolific was Agatha Christie's output - 66 crime novels, 20 plays, 6 romance books under a pseudonym and over 150 short stories - it was often claimed that she had a photographic memory. Was this true? Or did she resort over those 55 years to more mundane methods of working out her ingenious crimes?
Following the death of Agatha's daughter, Rosalind, at the end of 2004, a remarkable secret was revealed. Unearthed among her affairs at the family home of Greenway were Agatha Christie's private notebooks, 73 handwritten volumes of notes, lists and drafts outlining all her plans for her many books, plays and stories. Buried in this treasure trove, all in her unmistakable handwriting, are revelations and details that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story.
Christie archivist and expert John Curran leads the reader through the six decades of Agatha Christie's writing career, unearthing some remarkable clues to her success and a number of never-before-published excerpts and stories from her archives. This book features Agatha's original ending of her very first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, painstakingly transcribed from her notebooks. It also includes a number of short stories from the archives reproduced in full, including the unpublished The Man Who Knew, How I Created Hercule Poirot, and an early draft for a Miss Marple story, The Case of the Caretaker's Wife.
When Agatha Christie died in 1976, aged 85, she had become the world's most popular author. With sales of more than two billion copies worldwide in more than 100 countries, she had achieved the impossible - more than one book every year since the 1920s, every one a bestseller.
So prolific was Agatha Christie's output - 66 crime novels, 20 plays, 6 romance books under a pseudonym and over 150 short stories - it was often claimed that she had a photographic memory. Was this true? Or did she resort over those 55 years to more mundane methods of working out her ingenious crimes?
Following the death of Agatha's daughter, Rosalind, at the end of 2004, a remarkable secret was revealed. Unearthed among her affairs at the family home of Greenway were Agatha Christie's private notebooks, 73 handwritten volumes of notes, lists and drafts outlining all her plans for her many books, plays and stories. Buried in this treasure trove, all in her unmistakable handwriting, are revelations and details that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story.
Christie archivist and expert John Curran leads the reader through the six decades of Agatha Christie's writing career, unearthing some remarkable clues to her success and a number of never-before-published excerpts and stories from her archives. This book features Agatha's original ending of her very first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, painstakingly transcribed from her notebooks. It also includes a number of short stories from the archives reproduced in full, including the unpublished The Man Who Knew, How I Created Hercule Poirot, and an early draft for a Miss Marple story, The Case of the Caretaker's Wife.
Reviews / Votes
'Many of Curran's discoveries will shape how Christie is read in future... This book is fascinating.' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY'Agatha Christie's notebooks have had to wait for the meticulous attention, dedication and prodigious knowledge of John Curran to achieve publication.' THE TIMES
'A meticulously detailed study that is packed with shrewd perceptions about Christie's fiction... Curran has produced an enthralling miscellany of a book, in which her fans will rummage to their heart's content.' SUNDAY TIMES
'Curran has organized his material as efficiently as an Agatha Christie mystery... His enthusiasm for his subject carries us along.' IRISH TIMES
'Something unimaginably unique: an unknown Poirot story, one that had lain silently between its covers for over 60 years.' THE SCOTSMAN
More details
Edition
Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Edition type
Revised edition
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 53 mm
Weight
710 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-812963-7 (9780008129637)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2016
1st Edition
HarperCollins
€11.99
Available for download
Persons
Dr John Curran is a lifelong fan of Golden Age detective fiction and one of Ireland's foremost experts on classic crime. For many years he edited the official Agatha Christie Newsletter and helped to establish the Agatha Christie Archive. He was consultant to the National Trust during the restoration of Greenway House and wrote his doctoral thesis on the Golden Age of Detective Fiction at Trinity College, Dublin. His two volumes about Agatha Christie's notebooks won three major US mystery awards (the Agatha, Anthony and Macavity), and his history of Collins' Crime Club, The Hooded Gunman, was nominated for an Edgar and won the 2019 H.R.F. Keating Award for best critical book related to crime fiction. He set up the annual Bodies from the Library conference at the British Library and is in demand as a speaker and lecturer on Agatha Christie from his home in Dublin.