
Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks
Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making - Includes Two Unpublished Poirot Stories
John Curran(Author)
HarperCollins (Publisher)
Published on 3. September 2009
Book
Hardback
492 pages
978-0-00-731056-2 (ISBN)
Description
A fascinating exploration of the contents of Agatha Christie's 73 recently discovered notebooks, including illustrations, deleted extracts, and two unpublished Poirot stories.
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.
This remarkable new book includes a wealth of extracts and pages reproduced directly from the notebooks, plus for the first time two newly discovered complete Hercule Poirot short stories never before published: The Incident of the Dog's Ball and the thirteenth Labour of Hercules!
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.
This remarkable new book includes a wealth of extracts and pages reproduced directly from the notebooks, plus for the first time two newly discovered complete Hercule Poirot short stories never before published: The Incident of the Dog's Ball and the thirteenth Labour of Hercules!
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
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 38 mm
Weight
794 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-731056-2 (9780007310562)
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

John Curran
Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks
Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making - Includes Two Unpublished Poirot Stories
E-Book
09/2009
1st Edition
HarperCollins
€9.59
Available for download
Person
John Curran wrote his doctoral thesis on the Golden Age of Detective Fiction at Trinity College, Dublin. For many years he edited the official Agatha Christie Newsletter and acted as consultant to the National Trust during the restoration of Greenway House in Devon. His books about Dame Agatha's notebooks won numerous nominations as well as the Agatha, Antony and Macavity non-fiction crime-writing awards, and he is continual demand as a speaker and expert on the genre.