Agatha Christie first editions make for an excellent area of rare book collecting. The Queen of Crime’s long career as an author of high quality crime fiction ensures there are various levels of value, which means collectors of her first editions can start with the later, generally more affordable first editions of her crime fiction titles, and build their way toward the more expensive first editions from the 1920s & 1930s.
Many of Dame Agatha’s first editions feature excellent dust-jacket artwork. The American first editions of Agatha Christie are often clad in truly lovely dust-jackets, very different in style to their UK counterparts, and can also provide a more affordable option for collectors than the UK first editions.
Some collectors like to focus on one of her famous serial characters, including Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot of course. Whatever your poison, you should be able to start building a collection relatively quickly.
Agatha Christie also wrote under a pseudonym, ‘Mary Westmacott’, and these titles are also not easy to find in first edition, especially in the dust-jackets.
Some care has to be taken in identifying the correct first issue dust-jackets, particularly with her earlier detective fiction, so do contact us if you are looking to buy or sell Agatha Christie first editions. It is however not always about the dust-jacket! Many collectors like the early paperback editions of Christie’s works, and some collect first editions without the dust-jackets, to have them rebound in a uniform style of their liking, for example in modern half leather bindings.
Detective Fiction
London, Colliins Crime Club, 1957.
First edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, priced 12s6d.
Two trains side by side for a brief moment... in that moment, a murder... A very nice first edition of this Miss Marple murder mystery.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1953.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
A decent first edition of this Miss Marple title, with the famous scene of the maid found strangled and with a clothes peg on her nose. One of several Christie titles with an allusion to nursery rhymes.
Detective Fiction
Christie (Agatha) and E. Phillips Oppenheim. Two New Crime Stories
[The Under Dog; Blackman's Wood.]
London, The Readers Library, n.d. [1929].
First edition thus. Small 8vo. 2pp. adverts. Original cloth, gilt. Dust-jacket.
A rare pre-1930s Readers Library title, combining a title by Agatha Christie and another by E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Detective Fiction
Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1948
First Penguin edition. 8vo. Original green & white wrappers.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1956.
First edition. 8vo. Original red boards. Dust-jacket, priced 12s6d.
Classic Hercule Poirot murder mystery, which sees the Belgian detective partnering the crime novelist Ariadne Oliver (who bears a certain resemblance to Agatha Christie).
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1967.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 18s.
Taking its title from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence, this later title ranked amongst the author's favourites of her own works.
Detective Fiction
London, Odhams, 1937.
First Odhams edition. 8vo. Original blue boards. Dust-jacket, priced 7/6.
A great example of the Odhams edition Murder in the Mews, comprising four Poirot stories; featuring the same artwork and printed in the same year as the Collins first printing.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, n.d..
Collins 2/- issue. 12mo. Original blue cloth. Dust-jacket.
A neat early edition of this Agatha Christie classic.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1945.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 8s6d.
A very good first edition of one of the more collectable 1940s Agatha Christie titles. The third novel to feature Colonel Race.
Detective Fiction
and other stories.
London, Collins Crime Club, 1936
First Collins edition. 8vo. Original black cloth lettered in red.
A very good copy of this collection of twelve stories by the Queen of Crime, many with a supernatural twist. This Collins Crime Club edition was published after the 1933 Odhams edition, but is surprisingly more uncommon; presumed to be the export issue in this binding.
Detective Fiction
London, John Lane The Bodley Head Limited, 1925.
First edition. 8vo. Modern dark green half morocco with marbled boards, spine label red morocco, lettered in gilt.
A handsomely rebound first edition of this Agatha Christie classic. The novel introduces the characters of Superintendent Battle and Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1951.
First edition. 8vo. Original cloth. Dust-jacket, correctly priced 8s.6d.
A pleasing copy of this Agatha Christie first edition, a hard dust-jacket to find in such condition due to its proneness to fading and marking. The story itself builds upon Christie's own excursions alongside her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, and is more of a spy novel than a whodunnit.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1951.
First edition. 8vo. Original dark orange cloth. Dust-jacket, price-clipped.
A very good first edition of this tale of international intrigue and deadly peril.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins Crime Club, 1956.
First edition. 8vo. Original orange cloth. Dust-jacket, priced 10s6d.
Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitation centre for delinquents.
Detective Fiction
London, Collins, 1946.
First edition. 8vo. Original red cloth lettered in gilt to spine. Dust-jacket, priced 10s. 6d.
The first edition of Agatha Christie's personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels.