![]() Dust-jacket illustration of the first US edition | |
Author | Agatha Christie |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Crime Short Stories |
Publisher | Dodd, Mead and Company |
Publication date | 1939 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 229 pp (first edition, hardback) |
Preceded by | And Then There Were None |
Followed by | Sad Cypress |
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1939. [1] The first edition retailed at $2.00. [1]
The stories feature, with one exception ("In a Glass Darkly"), Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple or Parker Pyne, Christie's detectives. The collection was not published in the UK and was the first time a Christie book was published in the US without a comparable publication in the UK; however all of the stories in the collection were published in later UK collections (see UK book appearances of stories below).
"The Regatta Mystery" (the title story) has Mr Parker Pyne catch a diamond thief during regatta festivities at Dartmouth harbour.
"The Mystery of the Bagdad Chest" concerns how a dead body found its way into the titular chest in the midst of a dance party. Arthur Hastings chronicles Hercule Poirot's unravelling of the mystery.
"How Does Your Garden Grow?" is a line from the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary", which Poirot is reminded of when visiting a country house with a beautifully maintained garden whose mistress has just died – after writing a cryptic letter requesting his help.
The "Problem at Pollensa Bay" concerns a mother's dislike for her son's fiancée. The problem is solved (non-violently) by fellow vacationer Parker Pyne.
In "Yellow Iris", Poirot follows an anonymous phone call to a restaurant table laden with the favourite flower of a woman who died mysteriously four years before. This story was expanded into the full-length mystery novel Sparkling Cyanide , with Colonel Race replacing Poirot.
"Miss Marple Tells a Story" is written in the first person by the elderly sleuth, who recalls solving (without leaving her own chair) a seemingly impossible murder.
In "The Dream", an eccentric millionaire tells Poirot of a troubling dream in which he kills himself – and is found dead a week later.
"In a Glass Darkly" is the only story in the collection not to feature one of Christie's detectives (it is told by an anonymous narrator), and the only one to invoke the supernatural. Its title alludes to the phrase "Through a glass darkly", used by the Apostle Paul to describe how we currently view the world.
In "Problem at Sea", a rich woman is found dead in her cabin on a luxury ship off the shore of Alexandria. The story concludes with Poirot saying: "I do not approve of murder."
In The New York Times Book Review for 25 June 1939, Isaac Anderson mentioned by name "Miss Marple Tells a Story" and went on to say that, "Neither this story nor any of the others is comparable to the longer works of Agatha Christie, but that is scarcely to be expected, for the detective story, more perhaps than any other type of fiction, needs continued suspense to hold the reader's interest, and very few authors have been able to manage that within the limits of the short story." [2]
An unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star (30 June 1939) wrote, regarding the title story "The Regatta Mystery", that "Agatha Christie succeeds in baffling her readers ... [B]ut far from plausible is her solution", and went on generally to say, "The author is handicapped by attempting to compress her plots into 27-odd pages each. Nor has she opportunity for continued suspense." [3]
The original version of "The Regatta Mystery" featured Hercule Poirot. The story was later rewritten by Christie to change the detective from Poirot to Parker Pyne for book publication and all collections in both the US and UK contain the Pyne version of the story. The original Poirot version appeared in the 3 May 1936 edition of the Hartford Courant newspaper with an uncredited illustration. It surfaced again in 2008 as part of the three-volume Harper collection, Agatha Christie: The Complete Short Stories – Masterpieces in Miniature. (The story appears as the postscript to the Poirot volume.)
"Miss Marple Tells a Story" was specially commissioned by the BBC as a radio play and read by Christie herself on 11 May 1934 on BBC's National Programme. No print publications of the story prior to 1939 are known. For first publications in the UK, see the applicable UK collections below.
The stories contained in The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories appear in the following UK collections:
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Miss Jane Marple is a fictional character in Agatha Christie's crime novels and short stories. Miss Marple lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur consulting detective. Often characterized as an elderly spinster, she is one of Christie's best-known characters and has been portrayed numerous times on screen. Her first appearance was in a short story published in The Royal Magazine in December 1927, "The Tuesday Night Club", which later became the first chapter of The Thirteen Problems (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and her last appearance was in Sleeping Murder in 1976.
Agatha Christie's Poirot, or simply Poirot, is a British mystery drama television programme that aired on ITV from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. The ITV show is based on many of Agatha Christie’s famous crime fiction series, which revolves around the fictional private investigator, Hercule Poirot. David Suchet starred as the fictional detective. Initially produced by LWT, the series was later produced by ITV Studios. The series also aired on VisionTV in Canada and on PBS and A&E in the US.
Inspector James Japp is a fictional character who appears in several of Agatha Christie's novels featuring Hercule Poirot.
Ariadne Oliver is a fictional character in the novels of Agatha Christie. She is a crime fiction novelist, the creator of the fictional Finnish detective Sven Hjerson, and a friend of Hercule Poirot.
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrées is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 24 October 1960. It is the only Christie first edition published in the UK that contains stories with both Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, the writer's two most famous detectives. It retailed in the UK for twelve shillings and sixpence (12/6) and comprises six cases. It was not published in the US although the stories it contains were published in other volumes there.
Murder in Mesopotamia is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 6 July 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00. The cover was designed by Robin McCartney.
Sparkling Cyanide is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1945 under the title of Remembered Death and in UK by the Collins Crime Club in the December of the same year under Christie's original title. The US edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at eight shillings and sixpence (8/6).
Parker Pyne Investigates is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins and Sons in November 1934. Along with The Listerdale Mystery, this collection did not appear under the usual imprint of the Collins Crime Club but instead appeared as part of the Collins Mystery series. It appeared in the US later in the same year published by Dodd, Mead and Company under the title Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1948. The first edition retailed at $2.50. The story "The Second Gong" features Hercule Poirot, the only character in the stories who appears in any other of Christie's works.
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories is a collection of short stories written by Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1950. The first edition retailed at $2.50.
Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club in October 1979 retailing at £4.50. It was the last Christie book to be published under the Collins Crime Club imprint although HarperCollins continue to be the writer's UK publishers.
The Harlequin Tea Set is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by G. P. Putnam's Sons on 14 April 1997. It contains nine short stories each of which involves a separate mystery. With the exception of "The Harlequin Tea Set", which was published in the collection Problem at Pollensa Bay, all stories were published in the UK in 1997 in the anthology While the Light Lasts and Other Stories.
This page details the books featuring the fictional character Hercule Poirot, created by Agatha Christie.
Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories is a short story collection by Agatha Christie published in the UK only in November 1991 by HarperCollins. It was not published in the US but all the stories contained within it had previously been published in American volumes. It retailed at £13.99. It contains two stories with Hercule Poirot, two with Parker Pyne, two with Harley Quin and two gothic tales.
The Yellow Iris is a radio play written by Agatha Christie and broadcast on the BBC National Programme on Tuesday 2 November 1937 at 8.00pm. The one-hour programme was broadcast again two days later, this time on the BBC Regional Programme at 9.00pm.
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English crime novelist, short-story writer and playwright. Her reputation rests on 66 detective novels and 15 short-story collections that have sold over two billion copies, an amount surpassed only by the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. She is also the most translated individual author in the world with her books having been translated into more than 100 languages. Her works contain several regular characters with whom the public became familiar, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Parker Pyne and Harley Quin. Christie wrote more Poirot stories than any of the others, even though she thought the character to be "rather insufferable". Following the publication of the 1975 novel Curtain, Poirot's obituary appeared on the front page of The New York Times.
In Agatha Christie's mystery novels, several characters cross over different sagas, creating a fictional universe in which most of her stories are set. This article has one table to summarize the novels with characters who occur in other Christie novels; the table is titled Crossovers by Christie. There is brief mention of characters crossing over in adaptations of the novels. Her publications, both novels and short stories, are then listed by main detective, in order of publication. Some stories or novels authorised by the estate of Agatha Christie, using the characters she created, and written long after Agatha Christie died, are included in the lists.
Lists of adaptations of the works of Agatha Christie:
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English detective fiction writer and creator of fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.