The Mysterious Affair at Styles Paperback - 2014

Name: The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Price: 17.00 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9781483704333

by Agatha Christie

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About this book

Written in 1916, during World War I, The Mysterious Affair at Styles is Agatha Christie’s first published novel. The story introduces the author’s world-famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, as well as Lieutenant (later Captain) Hastings and Inspector (later Chief Inspector) Japp. The mystery begins with Poirot settling in England near the home of Emily Inglethorp. When Emily is killed, Poirot must apply his detective skills to solve the mystery based on a few seemingly random clues. The book includes maps of the house, the murder scene, and a drawing of a fragment of a will.

From the publisher

Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first appearance of Hercule Poirot. In the midst of World War I, the residents of Styles wake one morning to find Emily Inglethorpe has been fatally poisoned. Captain Hastings, staying with the family, enlists the help of his old friend, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. With the evidence mounting against one member of the family, Poirot uses his unique deductive technique to prove who really killed Emily. Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie was an English crime novelist and playwright. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but is best known for the detective novels and 14 short story collections she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple and Tommy and Tuppence.

First Edition Identification

After having been rejected by six publishers, John Lane (US) produced the story in novel form for the first time in October 1920. (The Mysterious Affair at Styles had previously been serialized in the UK’s The Times in February of that year.) The first edition of the novel has a hardcover with 296 pages. Beneath the dustjacket illustrated by Alfred James Dewey, the book is covered in pale brown cloth with dark green lettering on the upper cover and spine.