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Another World Record?

19 May 09 10:29AM

‘Wouldn’t it be good if Agatha Christie could break another world record?’ It was one of those mornings. Our monthly meeting to discuss sales figures and forward plans with Agatha Christie Limited is usually eventful enough, as there’s always something interesting going on, but today Mathew Prichard was in attendance and there was an air of excitement in the room.

Agatha Christie has held two world records for many years now. As the best-selling novelist of all time, having sold two billion books worldwide in over 45 languages, and as the author of the longest-running play, The Mousetrap, now in its 58th continuous year. But Agatha Christie Limited had been in touch with Guinness World Records (GWR) and had discovered that the largest page count of any book was a dictionary with 3,888 pages (although we later discovered that this was in two volumes, so wasn’t the record holder in any case). So the question was, could HarperCollins publish a single volume of around 3,900 pages and claim the world record for the thickest book? ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘We can do anything.’ Editors are trained to say things like that. Well, it was harder than it sounded.

GWR had insisted that the book had to be mass produced and made available for sale, not a one-off production, and most importantly of all be physically readable. It had to function as a book, and be one continuous binding, not an unyielding stack of paper or something that divided into separate parts. We rapidly dismissed the idea of publishing all of Agatha Christie’s books in one volume – we would have needed around 20,000 pages for that – and decided that Miss Marple, with her 12 novels and 20 short stories, would provide the perfect length for us to achieve 4,000 pages.

Over the next few weeks, we contacted a number of printers and bookbinders, both in the UK and overseas, most of whom told us that it was too big – hadn’t it occurred to us that there were good practical reasons why people didn’t produce 4,000-page books? But Cromwell Press in Wiltshire, in partnership with Cedric & Chivers Period Bookbinders, a company with 150 years of antiquarian book manufacturing under its belt, said that they would like to try, and began creating prototypes. The breakthrough was in the design of the spine: it had to be strong enough to bear the weight of almost 8kg of paper while flexible enough to allow the book to open so that every page could be read. The solution was in a completely flexible hand-sewn and leather arrangement that opened like a concertina – it was like nothing we had expected, but utterly perfect for the job.

The unveiling of the first working prototype was an auspicious occasion. After four months, I think even Mathew had given up on us ever finding a solution, but we revealed the book and he marvelled over the ingenuity of it. Made up of 252 hand-sewn sections (called signatures) of 16 pages each, the book had ended just under a foot thick, and one of the biggest challenges had been to find a guillotine large enough to trim the pages. But the prototype gave us all the confidence to go ahead with our record attempt, and at the end of 2008, we ordered 500 copies.

Knowing that the book had to be special, we had already been working on what would go inside. We approached Kate Mosse, author of the bestselling Labyrinth and a self-confessed Miss Marple fan, to write an introduction, and we commissioned a full-colour map of St Mary Mead from artist Nicolette Caven, to be based on Agatha Christie’s own drawing of the village from A Murder at the Vicarage. PolmacUK, who manufacture beautiful wooden boxes, were commissioned to produce suede-lined cases for the book, as we knew we needed something both elegant and robust after the handle had fallen off an earlier attempt to make a leather box!

In more than ten years of publishing Agatha Christie, I don’t believe that I have ever seen so much time and effort go into producing one book (albeit 500 copies). But The Complete Miss Marple is not just a book. It’s not even just a world record. For the people working on it, it has become a labour of love, a chance to wind back the clock and revisit some of the forgotten arts of publishing. The end result is both a technical achievement and a thing of beauty. It is also very British – clever, solid, functional, and faintly absurd. We hope that Agatha Christie would have approved.

So who is it for? Sadly, our idea to target MPs and get them to put copies on expenses hasn’t really taken off. But for anyone else with a spare thousand pounds, this could make a nice heirloom. A thousand pounds will buy you a large widescreen plasma TV that will last you about 5 years. With a bit of care, this will last you and your family 500 years – and still be readable. Your descendants might be shocked though by the brutality of 20th century village life – 43 murders: 12 poisonings, 6 strangulations, 2 drownings, 2 stabbings, a burning, a blow to the head, an arrow to the heart and two people pushed. All this while 143 cups of tea are served by 66 maids – and 47 garments are knitted while Miss Marple dismisses 59 red herrings!

And that’s all because a book like this can only be impressive if the stories inside it are equally timeless. Maybe if Agatha Christie had seen it, she might have come up with a 44th murder for Miss Marple to solve – ‘victim crushed under a stone and a half of book dropped from great height.’ Now there’s an idea for a plot…

David Brawn

Publishing Director HarperCollins

7 comments

Comment on this story

7 comments

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betty_barnard 26 May 09 at 6:59a.m.

Well I've got mine and it's amazing. jsalsman - it weighs, including the box 11kg, so you need to be quite strong to lift it! When you take the book out of the box (which, btw is just beautiful in its own right) it's a lot easier to manage. You can quite easily read it if you put in on a table as the spine bends over. I don't think I'll want to read it too much though as it's just so lovely I want to keep it in as pristine condition as possible. You also get a lovely coloured map of St Mary Mead which I'm tempted to frame! I'm still waiting for my certificate but they did say it would come separately. I'm really, really pleased that I decided to splash out and buy this but then I do like to have 'exclusive' things and this comes pretty close to that.

If you've also bought one do let me know as I'd be interested to compare notes.

jsalsman 23 May 09 at 6:14a.m.

My word! How much does it weigh?

S_Sigerson 22 May 09 at 2:05p.m.

Thank you for the quick response to my inquiry.

Jemma 22 May 09 at 8:08a.m.

Hi S_Sigerson,

Shipping within the UK is free. If you do not live in the UK please email - weborders@harpercollins.co.uk - and they will be able to give you more information about the cost of shipping to your address.

S_Sigerson 22 May 09 at 1:47a.m.

I couldn't imagine taking this to the park to read, unless I had a personal body guard to protect the book and a valet to carry it and hold it while I read. Nor is it a book to take to the beach on ones summer holiday. Not light reading material and in this case literally, not figuratively. It does look like the bookbinder did a superb job - true craftsmanship. A valuable addition to anyone's Agatha Christie collection. I do have a question, does the price include shipping? If not how much is shipping? I know Amazon charges extra for overweight books.

Jemma 20 May 09 at 9:41a.m.

The new book retails at £1000. It's available to buy through this number - 0844 576 8112.

GKCfan 19 May 09 at 6:31p.m.

Bravo! It is great to see Christie setting another record. How much will the book cost? It's probably way out of my price range. I'd like to see the full color map of St. Mary Mead, though.