I started reading Agatha Christie mysteries in the mid-1960s. I was in High School with boring Study Halls so I started bringing books to read during those times. Agatha Christie paperbacks showed up on spinner racks (remember them?) everywhere so there were plenty of her titles to choose from. I gravitated toward the DELL paperbacks that had William Teason’s artwork on the covers. Teason would take clues from the books and use them in his clever covers. I binged on Christie mysteries for a year or so. Then I discovered Carter Brown and plenty of paperback Private Eye novels and moved on.
But my fondness for Christie mysteries was reignited in 1979 when the first edition of The Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie was published. In 1986, The NEW Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie (aka, The Second Edition) showed up. That’s the volume I’m reviewing here.
The NEW Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie is a browser’s delight. There are synopsis’s of all the novels, plays, and short stories (without spoilers!). There’s a Christie mystery map, cross-word puzzles, poems, and fan appreciation essays.
The features new to this edition are:
Edward D. Hoch on Christie’s short fiction
Emma Lathen on Jessica Fletcher (a liberated Miss Marple?)
Filmography and video listings…that are obsolete.
If you’re an Agatha Christie fan, you probably own The NEW Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie. But, if you don’t, inexpensive copies are available on-line. There are hours of fun in these pages! Are you a Christie fan? Do you have a favorite Christie mystery? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgments — xi
A portrait of Agatha Christie / Julie Symons –xii
Preface — xvii
A publishing phenomenon / Patricia Maida –1
A Christie fan congress “I get that familiar tingle when I see her books” — 2
A fan letter / Lillian Carter — 5
The mysterious affair at Styles / Dick Riley — 6
The secret adversary / Gerald M. Kline — 9
Murder on the links / Norma Siebenheller — 12
The man in the brown suit / Janice Curry — 14
Poirot investigates / Cindy Loose — 16
A nice cuppa : the english tea ritual / Joanna Milton –18
I wouldn’t go in if I were you : rooms to avoid in an English country house / Dick Riley — 22
The secret of chimneys / Peter J. Fitzpatrick — 24
The murder of Roger Ackroyd / Norma Siebenheller — 27
The big four / Jerry Speir — 30
The mystery of the blue train / Jim Mele — 33
The seven dials mystery / Lisa Merrill — 36
A little diversion : a Christie crossword / Dale G. Copps — 38
Partners in crime / Norma Siebenheller — 39
Murder at the vicarage / Jack Murphy — 42
The mysterious Mr. Quin / Gaila Perkins — 46
Murder at Hazelmoor / Anita McAllister — 48
Peril at end house / Russ Kane — 50
The cruder methods : knives, guns, and a concerto for blunt instruments / Dick Riley — 52
A macabre tea party / Joanna Milton — 55
The tuesday club murders / Robert Smither –59
The hound of death / Pam McAllister — 61
Thirteen at dinner / Cynthia A. Read — 63
The boomerang clue / Jan Oxenburg — 66
Black coffee / Granville Burgess — 69
How to trace your family mystery if you dare — 71
Crime, class, and country in Christie’s mystery / Sue Ellen York and Pam McAllister — 73
Murder on the Orient Express / Cindy Loose — 78
Mr. Parker Pyne, detective / Richard Regis — 81
Murder in three acts / Gerald M. Kline — 83
Death in the air / Richard Regis — 86
Poirot makes the big time / Michael Tennenbaum — 88
The “what’s your name” word find / Dale G. Copps — 91
The A.B.C. murders / Phil Clendenen — 92
Murder in Mesopotamia / Jack Murphy — 94
Cards on the table / Helene Von Rosenstiel — 96
Poirot loses a client / Peter J. Fitzpatrick — 98
Christiemovie : an annotated filmography / Michael Tennenbaum — 101
The condemned ate a hearty meal : some favorite English dishes / Joanna Milton — 108
Death on the Nile / Libby Bassett — 112
Dead man’s mirror / Joanna Sturman —115
Appointment with death / Peter J. Fitzpatrick — 118
Murder for Christmas / Joan Gerstel — 120
Easy to kill / Jerry Kill / Jerry Keucher — 122
“You need look no farther, Inspector-three stands your criminal” or, how did the British police get by without Poirot and Marple? / Elizabeth Leese –124
Life on the Nile / Michael Tennenbaum — 126
Ten little indians / Maureen Stoddard — 129
Regatta mystery / Dick Riley — 132
Sad Cypress / Anita McAllister — 134
The patriotic murders / Norma Siebenheller — 136
Evil under the sun / Brian Haugh — 138
N or M? / Robert Smither — 139
The romantic Englishwoman : Agatha Christie as Mary Weatmacott / Patricia Maida and Nick Spornick — 141
Ten little who? / Pam McAllister — 144
And then there were three / Michael Tennenbaum — 146
The body in the library / Helene Von Rosenstiel — 149
The moving finger / Paul and Kadey Kimpel — 151
Murder in retrospect / Cindy Loose — 153
Towards zero / Jan Oxenberg — 155
Death comes as the end / Richard Regis — 157
All my trails : scenes from the Old Bailey / Elizabeth Leese — 159
The poison pen : a guide to Agatha’s toxic agents / Richard Regis –162
Remembered death / Helene Kendler — 166
Murder after hours / Jerry Keucher — 168
The labors of Hercules / Joanna Milton — 170
There is a tide / Sue Ellen York — 173
Witness for the prosecution / Granville Burgess — 175
The making of witness for the prosecution / Michael Tennenbaum — 177
A guide to murders fair & foul : the Christie mystery map of southern England — 180
Dartmoor-the deadly heath / Pam McAllister — 182
Crooked house / Regina Sackmary — 186
The mousetrap and other stories / Deborah J. Pope — 188
A murder is announced / Brian Haugh –191
They came to Baghdad / Edwin A. Rollins — 193
The under dog and other stories / John Sturman — 195
The mousetrap double-crostic / Dale G. Copps — 198
The quotable Christie — 200
The selling of Christie / Michael Tennenbaum — 202
It’s not a play, it’s an institution : the mousetrap / Elizabeth Leese — 203
Mrs. McGinty’s dead / Paul and Kadey Kimpel — 204
Murder with mirrors / Mark Fischweicher — 206
A pocket full of rye / Anita Greenfield — 208
Funerals are fatal / Joan Daniel — 210
Spider’s web / Jan Oxenberg — 212
Hercule Poirot : the man and the myth / Jerry Keucher –214
Poirot and I : a Hungarian-born fan tells why he identifies with Poirot — 219
So many steps to death / Marcia Clendenen — 222
Hickory, dickory, death / Jean Fiedler — 223
Dead man’s folly / Beth Simon –225
What Mrs. McGillicuddy saw! / Jan Oxenberg — 227
Unexpected guest / Granville Burgess – 229
They gave their lives for art ; a study of the Christie victims / Janice Curry — 231
The Miss Marple double-crostic / Dale G. Copps — 234
Ordeal by innocence / Norma Siebenheller — 236
Verdict / Jan Oxenberg — 238
Cat among the pigeons / Regina Sackmary — 240
The adventure of the Christmas pudding / Pam McAllister — 242
Double sin and other stories / Richard Regis — 244
The marvelous Miss Marple a profile / Norma Siebenheller — 245
Margaret Rutherford : the universal aunt / Michael Tennenbaum — 249
The pale horse / Ruth Farmer — 252
The mirror crack’d / Pam McAllister — 254
Rule of three / Granville Burgess — 256
The clocks / Deborah J. pope — 259
The womanly arts: gossip and intuition as detective tools / Jan Oxenberg — 261
A Caribbean mystery / Ann Cohen — 264
At Bertram’s hotel / Peter J. Fitzpatrick — 266
Third girl / Edwin A. Rollins — 269
Endless night / Richard Regis — 271
The Agatha Christie title crossword / Dale G. Copps — 273
Ariadne Oliver : Dame Agatha’s alter ego / Beth Simon — 274
Out of the top drawer or, how they dressed / John Sturman — 278
By the pricking of my thumbs / Gaila Perkins — 282
Hallowe’en party / Albert Norton — 284
Passenger to Frankfurt / Richard Regis — 286
The golden ball and other stories / Catherine DeLoughry — 288
He and she : two fans tell how they turned each other on to Christie — 290
“How do you feel about that, Jane?” : if I were Miss Marple’s shrink-a fantasy / Ro King with Pam McAllister — 295
Nemesis / Anita McAllister — 298
Elephants can remember / Robert Smither — 300
Akhnaton / Dick Riley — 302
Hercule Poirot double-crostic / Dale G. Copps — 304
Postern of Fate / Cynthia A. Read — 306
Poirot’s early cases / Anita Greenfield — 309
Curtain / Beth Simon — 311
Sleeping murder / Pam NcAllister — 314
Christiemovie II : and then there were more / Michael Tennenbaum — 316
Tommy and Tuppence : partners in “the great game” / Bruce Cassiday — 321
Waste no words : the short fiction / Edward D. Hoch — 324
Agatha : the movie that almost wasn’t : Michael Tennenbaum — 326
I was murdered at an Agatha Christie mystery weekend / Bruce Cassiday –329
Agatha in the eighties / Pam McAllister — 334
Inside the detection club / Ann Romeo — 336
Christie on the BBC / Michael Tennenbaum — 339
Jessica Fletcher : a liberated Miss Marple? / Emma Lathen — 340
The impact of gender on Agatha and her craft / Pam McAllister –342
Agatha Christie made me do it! — 345
Had enough yet? — 346
Christie on video — 347
The unread Christie / Norma Siebenheller — 348
AGATHA CHRISTIE Editions Currently in Print — 349
Christie books arranged by Detective featured — 352
Plays and Short Story collections — 353
Illustration Credits — 355
About the Contributors — 358
Title Index — 360
I love Christie—although probably not as much as my daughter Victoria who wrote her thesis on disabled women in Christie’s work. My mother was a huge Christie fan too—so we’ve passed our love down through the generations. Probably my favorite Christie is the rather atypical ENDLESS NIGHT—which is the closest thing to noir that Christie ever wrote and probably her last “great” book.
Deb, would Victoria like a copy of THE NEW BEDSIDE, BATHTUB & ARMCHAIR COMPANION TO AGATHA CHRISTIE? I have an extra copy I’d be happy to send her.
I’m sure she would! Thank you—that’s very generous of you!
Deb, I’ll put THE NEW BEDSIDE, BATHTUB & ARMCHAIR COMPANION TO AGATHA CHRISTIE in the mail to you next week!
Except for Cassiday, Hoch, and Lathen, I draw a blank on the authors. But then, I’ve never read Christie. I was reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ian Fleming, and Nick Carter (the ’60s one) in study hall. Ah, spinner racks. We thought they’d last forever.
Fred, plenty of the people in THE NEW BEDSIDE, BATHTUB & ARMCHAIR COMPANION TO AGATHA CHRISTIE are fans writing about their experiences with their favorite author. Plenty of facts!
I haven’t read much Christie but did pick up a short story vollection that’s still on my nightstand waiting to be cracked later this month. I love the cover on the companion book, so eighties and it brings back fond memories of when I haunted multiple bookstores every week (remember when you could do that?)
I not only remember paperback racks I have many, many fond memories of browsing them in drugstores and grocery stores. I’ve actually been casually looking for one whenever I go into an antique store. I’d love to have one at home. I imagine I could find one on line but that wouldn’t be as much fun and I’m sure the shipping would be expensive.
On an unrelated note, being a former teacher are you curious about “The Holdovers”? The reviews have been pretty good.
Byron, I wish I had a spinner rack, too! But, like you, I’ve come up empty looking for one to buy…so far. I can’t haunt bookstores because most of them have closed. The few that remain open in Western New York require a half hour (or more) of driving to get to them. THE HOLDOVERS has been described to be an updated version of THE DEAD POETS SOCIETY. I’ll probably watch it when it comes to Netflix or HULU.
Love Christie. I read about half of her books a while back, and last year started reading/rereading them in order. 17 of the 80 so far; I also started one of her non-mysteries published under the Mary Westmacott pseudonym, but bogged down about halfway through and abandoned it.
My order is not the standard book-published order. I’m using instead the order they were first serialized in magazines. I imagine someone has gone through her papers and figured out the order everything was written in, but if so I haven’t seen it, and I’m happy with what I have. Most of the changes in order involve the short story collections. The Thirteen Problems/The Tuesday Club Murders was her first published writings about Miss Marple, so that for me comes before The Murder at the Vicarage, not after. The stories in The Labors of Hercules were first published years before the book was, so I’ve moved it up.
I’ve also reconfigured many of the short story collections into “books” that I like better. For instance, early on she wrote 24 Poirot short stories, and put about half of them in Poirot Investigates. The rest were scattered throughout various collections over the years (eventually recollected as Poirot’s Early Cases). I’ve put them together as two collections, Poirot Investigates and More Investigations, near the beginning of my list. Most of the collections come pretty early now, as for the most part she stopped writing short stories and concentrated on novels by the late thirties.
My handwritten bibliography, with the books in published order and with lines and arrows and other symbols moving books around, is surprisingly elegant. But it doesn’t have my reconfigured collections, so my typed version is superior.
By coincidence, just before coming here to see George’s blog, I finished reading Sophie Hannah’s first Poirot continuation, The Monogram Murders. I had read and liked some of Sophie Hannah’s novels, so I’ve been buying her Poirots, but never read any of them. We just watched and enjoyed A Haunting in Venice before leaving on vacation, and I was in a Poirot kind of mood, so I added this to what I brought with me and started it on the plane. I thought she captured Poirot very well. And I loved that the murderer confessed, in a chapter entitled The Truth at Last, when there still 80 pages to go — so this was obviously not The Truth, no matter how convincing it sounded.
Jeff, I have about a dozen Christies to read before I’ve read them all. I’m reading a couple a year to make them last. Here’s a list of Christie’s books in order by character:
The Hercule Poirot books
Hercule Poirot is one of the main characters in Christie’s stories, and he is a Belgian detective. The first book about Poirot came out in 1920, and he continued to be the protagonist of the series for years to come.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
The Murder on the Links (1923)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
The Big Four (1927)
The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
Peril at End House (1932)
Lord Edgware Dies (1933)
Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
Three Act Tragedy (1934)
Death in the Clouds (1935)
The A.B.C. Murders (1936)
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
Cards on the Table (1936)
Dumb Witness (1937)
Death on the Nile (1937)
Appointment with Death (1938)
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (1938)
Sad Cypress (1940)
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940)
Evil Under the Sun (1941)
Five Little Pigs (1942)
The Hollow (1946)
Taken at the Flood (1948)
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead (1952)
After the Funeral (1953)
Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
Dead Man’s Folly (1956)
Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
The Clocks (1963)
Third Girl (1966)
Hallowe’en Party (1969)
Elephants Can Remember (1972)
Curtain (1975)
The Hercule Poirot collections
Poirot Investigates (1924)
Murder in the Mews (1937)
The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest (1943)
Poirot and the Regatta Mystery (1943)
Poirot on Holiday (1943)
Problem at Pollensa Bay and The Christmas Adventure (1943)
The Veiled Lady and The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest (1944)
Poirot Knows the Murderer (1944)
The Labours of Hercules (1944)
Poirot’s Early Cases (1974)
These short story collections are solely focused on Poirot. But there are other collections with multiple characters. The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding is famous for featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple.
The Miss Marple books
Miss Marple is the second most popular character Agatha Christie wrote. She first appeared in a book in 1930 and is still appearing in crime mystery novels.
The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
The Body in the Library (1942)
The Moving Finger (1942)
A Murder is Announced (1950)
They Do It With Mirrors (1952)
A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)
4.50 from Paddington (1957)
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (1961)
A Caribbean Mystery (1964)
At Bertram’s Hotel (1965)
Nemesis (1971)
Sleeping Murder (1976)
The Miss Marple collections
The Thirteen Problems (1932)
13 Clues for Miss Marple (1966)
Miss Marple’s Final Cases and Two Other Stories (1979)
Keep in mind that some of Agatha Christie’s novels have different names in the U.S. and in the U.K.
Tommy and Tuppence books
Tommy and Tuppence are two detectives, and their names are Thomas Beresford and Prudence, his wife. They started as a young couple looking for an adventure, and they soon became amateur detectives. It is a step away from Poirot’s stories but still keeps the spirit of murder mysteries.
The Secret Adversary (1922)
Partners in Crime (1929)
N or M? (1941)
By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968)
Postern of Fate (1973)
Superintendent Battle books
Superintendent Battle is another character that appears in Christie’s books. He appeared in five novels, including:
The Secret of Chimneys (1925)
The Seven Dials Mystery (1926)
Cards on the Table (1936)
Murder is Easy (1939)
Towards Zero (1944)
In Cards on the Table, Battle appeared along with Poirot and Race.
Colonel Race books
Colonel Race first appeared in 1924, and he was a character in four stories.
The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)
Cards on the Table (1936)
Death on the Nile (1937)
Sparkling Cyanide (1945)
As mentioned earlier, Race appears in Cards on the Table along with Battle and Poirot.
Harley Quin books
The Mysterious Mr. Quin is a collection of short stories focusing on Mr. Harley Quin. The book was published in 1930, and Quin later appeared in other short stories and collections. It is also the only book that fully focuses on Harley Quin.
Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott
Agatha Christie wrote six stories as Mary Westmacott, and she believed that the pseudonym allowed her to express her feelings. The first Westmacott story came out in 1930.
Giant’s Bread (1930)
Unfinished Portrait (1934)
Absent in the Spring (1944)
The Rose and the Yew Tree (1948)
A Daughter’s a Daughter (1952)
The Burden (1956)
It remained a secret for a few years that Agatha Christie is the writer of the series.
Agatha Christie standalone books in order
Agatha Christie wrote several books that aren’t a part of any series, and they don’t feature iconic characters such as Poirot or Marple.
The Sittaford Mystery (1931)
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (1934)
And Then There Were None (1939)
Death Comes as the End (1944)
Crooked House (1949)
They Came to Baghdad (1951)
Destination Unknown (1954)
Ordeal by Innocence (1958)
The Pale Horse (1961)
Endless Night (1967)
Passenger to Frankfurt (1970)
Some of these books on the list have different names in the U.S. For example, The Sittaford Mystery, as it’s known in the United Kingdom, is titled The Murder of Hazelmoor is the United States.
The Big Four, with book publication a year after Eoger Ackroyd, definitely comes before it. At the end of The Big Four, Poirot says he’s leaving London to go somewhere quieter and grow marrows. At the beginning of Roger Acjroyd, he’s fussing that growing marrows is harder than he expected.
Of the two books she wrote during World War II and locked away to be published posthumously, the Poirot novel, Curtain, definitely belongs last on the list. The last Marple, Sleeping Murder, was written between The Moving Finger and A Murder is announced, so could go there. However, it’s specifically set in the thirties, so I put it between Murder at the Vicarage and Body in the Library.
Jeff, I agree with your alterations of these lists.
Your list sounds like the kind of thing I used to do, Jeff. Enjoy Hawaii!
Yes, I’ve read all of Christie (other than the Westmacotts) and, of course, I read the COMPANION many, many years ago. I’ve recently reread a number of her short stories in newly released editions. Jackie always liked the “young adventurer” books (including the Tommy & Tuppence titles) more than I did. She is also a fan of the Harley Quin/Mr. Satterthwait(e?) stories, even though she rarely reads short stories.
I really enjoy the “young adventurer” books. I love those characters I liked it when she pit one of those characters in a straight mystery — Bundle in The Seven Dials Mystery. (She was also in The Secret of Chimneys, but as a minor character and nowhere near as much fun.)
Jeff, I consider Christie’s short stories to be as entertaining as her mystery novels.
Teason’s run on Dell’s Christie paperbacks is one that deserves kudos – even now, long after publication. Unlike, say, the McGinnis covers on Carter Brown, which undoubtedly boosted sales, Christie would have sold big if the books had plain text on the covers. Even so, Teason’s Christie Gallery is an imaginative departure from what was typical for mystery pbs of the period. If that series (more than150 covers) didn’t get an industry award for Teason and his Art Director, Walter Brooks, they should have (they were honored by an exhibit at the Society of Illustrators in 1974). Tom Adams’ covers for the British Christie paperbacks were rightfully showcased in a coffee-table art book. Teason’s covers are deserving of the same. I always featured them in my slide shows, along with his own copycat “clues still lifes” for Berkeley’s reissue series of Sherlock Holmes. Well done, George!
Art, maybe STARK HOUSE will do a Teason art book! I’d buy a couple of copies at least!
I have enjoyed Christie casually and not at all comprehensively over the decades, particularly her use of Poirot (in short fiction, at least) to mock what annoyed her about the English (though I haven’t read enough of her work to have come across her class-snobbery that tends to annoy Patti Abbott, among others) .
Those were some impressive covers, without the visceral appeal of the McGinnises.
My study halls (and the occasional detention) were mostly devoted to anthologies, and eventually to some fiction magazines. Happily, my second high school didn’t schedule any, but instead had a college-style schedule that only became problematic when one of my English classes in 11th grade overlapped with my Spanish class, and my American Lit teacher decided I was doing something thus intentionally, as opposed to coping with the realities of the time (something she wasn’t too good at in any way, as I soon discovered).
Todd, I alternated SF and mystery paperbacks in Study Halls. I think I benefited more from all the books I read in Study Halls than I did taking ALGEBRA.