Product 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the contents of Agatha Christie's 73 recently discovered notebooks, including illustrations, deleted extracts, and two unpublished Poirot stories.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 about her famous books that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story. What is the 'deleted scene' in her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles? How did the infamous twist in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, really come about? Which very famous Poirot novel started life as an adventure for Miss Marple? Which books were designed to have completely different endings, and what were they? Full of details she was too modest to reveal in her own Autobiography, this remarkable new book includes a wealth of extracts and pages reproduced directly from the notebooks and her letters, plus for the first time two newly discovered complete Hercule Poirot short stories never before published.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #958 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

About the Author
John Curran is the long-time literary advisor to her Agatha Christie's estate, often giving talks and appearing on documentaries about her life. He has spent the last few years unpicking the notebooks and deciphering Agatha Christie's handwriting for this, his first book.

Customer Reviews

Exceptional piece of literary criticism.
Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks is a work of supreme interest to Christie fans everywhere containing a unique insight into the creative process of one of the world's favourite storytellers.

Regarding the review by R. Mitra. Has R. Mitra read the same book as I have?

The first point (s)he makes - that Mrs Christie considered Miss Marple for Dead Man's Folly - proves that (s)he completely misses the point. A more careful re-reading of this passage will show that this is a piece of evocative creative writing and an attempt (obviously very successful) on the part of John Curran to imagine Agatha Christie at work on one of her Notebooks.

Mitra complains about a lack of `additional facts'. This book is crammed with hitherto unknown and fascinating facts about most Christie titles. For instance, Miss Marple was the first choice to solve `Death on the Nile'? Or the alternative solutions for `Death Comes as the End'? And the genesis of `Five Little Pigs'? And the changes to `Endless Night'? or the revelations about `Sleeping Murder'. Could any of these facts be gleaned from a reading of the novels themselves, however careful? No, they could not and I could give many more examples....

And again, the point about the short story that inspired Dumb Witness is missed. The solutions to both novel and ss are different, a point that John Curran is at pains to point out. This is what makes the short story interesting to Christie fans (dyed-in-the-wool or not).

John Curran, or Agatha Christie can hardly be held responsible if Mitra assumes that `unpublished' means `new' - how could they be new when Christie is dead for over 30 years. Not sure where lawyers and 'fat fees' come in?

No pictures or photos? (`nice photos' in a book of literary criticism?)- the final proof that R. Mitra did not actually read this book. There are at least 20 full-page illustrations most of them never seen before. And the crossing out is clearly explained - for someone taking the trouble to read the book.

It is a great piece of literary criticism and adds to the fact that Christie was indeed genius.

Addictive analysis
Provides fascinating insights into Christie's mind -- unputdownable! Mr Curran has done a superb job -- he clearly knows Christie's oeuvre inside out. Highly recommended to all Christie aficionados. A must for detective story writers, established as well as aspiring.

A unique contribution to our knowledge of Agatha Christie's writing
Mr Curran has written a wonderful book to add a unique contribution to the vast collection of books about Agatha Christie.

He has been given access to a collection of notebooks which Agatha Christie used to record her thoughts about her writing in progress. He has written in so much detail about these notebooks that the resulting text will give all Christie fans so much more insight into her thinking and planning for so many of her books. Details include much about her characters, name changes and plot changes during her writing and even facsimiles of diagrams she drew to note settings for individual stories (e.g. Death in the Clouds, Evil Under the Sun, Towards Zero) make for fascinating reading. Two 'new' undiscovered short stories are included in the book. There is so much more and I'm sure every Christie fan will find something new of interest.

Sadly, there were no available notebooks covering 'Murder of Roger Ackroyd', 'Murder on the Orient Express' and a few others but this unavailability is, of course, not down to the author.

An absolute must for all Christie fans to buy and a bargain at the reduced Amazon price.