Agatha Christie: An Illustrated Companion by
Wagstaff V & Poole S
hbk out November 04
Published by Aurum P
at £17.99
This beautifully illustrated coffee table book provides a reminder that there is no end
to the popularity of Agatha Christie. Even as this volume hit the bookstalls, a lavish
new series of Miss Marple television shows featuring Geraldine McEwan as the
spinster sleuth was being heavily advertised, although it has appeared too late for
reference to it to be included in the text, co-written by an art expert and a dealer in
rare first editions. As Vanessa Wagstaff says in her foreword, Christie's classic
detective novels 'have an art-deco style conspicuously absent from so many twenty-
first century offerings: a style lovingly recreated in the feature films and television
adaptations' and the pictures bear this out. In his foreword, Stephen Poole apologises
'for the unequal coverage of the books', due to 'understandable constraints of space'.
An apology of this kind in a foreword is scarcely encouraging and it is an oddity that
(for instance) whereas Poirot Investigates is afforded seven pages, Crooked House
and A Murder is Announced share a single page. This can only be explained by the
fact that the earlier book is an exceptionally rare collector's item; certainly, the later
novels offer the discerning crime fan much meatier fare. After a terrific start, this
guide seems to lose steam from the books of the early 1940s onwards and coverage of
the later Christies is rushed, verging on the perfunctory. This is a pity, for those who
love rare first editions will find much to enjoy in the first half of this volume. The text
is interesting but limited, and simple research would have reminded the authors that
the Detection Club did not even exist when Christie wrote about the murder of Roger
Ackroyd. So how could she be deemed to have broken the Club's rules? Even Poirot
would struggle to solve that one.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
Agatha Christie: An Illustrated Companion by
Wagstaff V & Poole S
