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A daft question?

03 Nov 08 10:34AM

As the editor who has ‘looked after’ the Agatha Christie list at HarperCollins for the last decade, I am continually being asked if there aren’t any more ‘unpublished’ Agatha Christie books. What a daft question!

You see, every few years, authors whose books have survived long enough to remain in print – and still sell in profitable numbers – inevitably get the ‘repackaging’ treatment, where we rejacket their backlist as a way of keeping the books looking fresh and relevant alongside the innumerable new titles that are unleashed on us all. But despite all the effort, energy, imagination and (dare we admit it) money that goes into these repackages, there’s still nothing quite as compelling for a retailer or a reviewer as a ‘new’ book. They’ve got wise to the wily publisher who tries to pass off a rejacketed novel as something ‘new’, and though they expect – and encourage – the process, it’s still quite rare to find a previously published book shouting down at you from the same shelf in the bookshop or the supermarket that is inhabited by the glossy new novels, many of which sadly will be lost and forgotten within a very few months.

So everyone thought I had gone bonkers when I announced that I had just read a ‘new’ Agatha Christie book. How could this be? ‘It’s called Hallowe’en Party,’ I told them, and immediately I could tell that they smelled a rat. Or a herring.

This thing is, I didn’t know that I hadn’t read Hallowe’en Party. I took it on holiday ahead of checking the new comic book edition before it went off to print, and then I realised that in all my years as Agatha Christie’s editor, I hadn’t read this one. It’s not been on television either, and so it was, for me, a brand new Christie. Unknown. Unpublished. And what a marvellous treat is was, too! It got me thinking, how many more hadn’t I got around to reading? Hmm. Not N or M? Or Passenger to Frankfurt. And I’m not sure about They Came to Baghdad.

My point is that there are so few people who have read all Agatha Christie’s books (including her editor, obviously!) that for the majority of the reading public – maybe even some who visit this official website – there really are still ‘new’ books to be discovered. And to be honest, Agatha weaves such clever stories that sometimes it’s easy to forget which ones you’ve read, at least well enough to remember the whodunit. When Third Girl was on ITV a few weeks ago, I realised that even though I had read it, I couldn’t remember what happened. It’s great fun discovering a new Agatha Christie. So next time you’re looking for something to read, double check the list of titles. Hopefully you’ll find a new Agatha Christie book, too.

David BrawnPublishing DirectorHarperFiction

5 comments

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5 comments

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Gilles 11 Aug 10 at 5:20a.m.

Any thoughts on Mrs Christie's French?

Gilles 15 Jul 10 at 1:26a.m.

"As the editor who has ‘looked after’ the Agatha Christie list at HarperCollins for the last decade [...]"

I wonder if you could explain why there are so many typos in the digital editions of Agatha Christie's books published by HarperCollins on the iTunes Store. I downloaded 15 books up to now and very many of Poirot's French language phrases have typographical errors, for instance "C ̧a" instead of "Ça" or "me^me" instead of "même", and sometimes the accented letters don't have an accent.

Related, but this must be another problem, sometimes Poirot's French is approximative, i.e. "Quel erreur !" instead of "Quelle erreur !" Can you tell me if the mistakes are in Mrs. Christie's manuscripts or just négligence or ignorance of French on the part of the proof readers?

jds46 04 Jul 10 at 10:21p.m.

Is there a complete set of the mystery books, either paper or hard back ? I cannot find one, www searches yield only part sets eg 25 books
John

Colonel_Lascelles 22 Nov 08 at 11:37p.m.

Yes, there are so few people who have read all eighty Christie books. The same can be said of her contemporary and equally prolific author, P G Wodehouse who wrote some ninety-six books between 1902 and 1975. Of the sum of these two authors' publications, how many can be found in a public library today? I would hazard that in a large library, you could count them on one hand. I do not understand the relationship between publishers and libraries, but I hope you will take note, Mr. Brawn. This said, I am pleased to report that the new and delightful literary card game, Biblophile - Literature's Most Memorable Opening and Closing Lines includes both Christie and Wodehouse amongst its selection of fifty-two well known pieces of literature.

detectivepauljohn 08 Nov 08 at 8:05a.m.

I am currently reading "Hallowe'en Party". I love that book except some characters. Anyway all of her books are excellent and good. The ending of the book I am currently reading(I still don't know). I want to read Dumb Witness and Murder on the Orient Express and I'll buy them next month or whatever. I still own 5 Poirot books, 1 Marple, And Then There Were None and The Mysterious Mr. Quin(indeed very mysterious stories), that means I still didn't read all of Christie's books.