Description

“WITH LOVE FROM AGATHA”: VERY SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF FIVE LITTLE PIGS,
INSCRIBED BY AGATHA CHRISTIE

CHRISTIE, Agatha. Five Little Pigs. London: Collins, (1942). Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of this very scarce book in the Poirot series, inscribed: “With love from Agatha.”

Considered very scarce due to its wartime publication, this novel “concerns the efforts of Poirot to solve a 16-year-old crime by having the suspects write down their accounts of the crime” (Steinbrunner & Penzler, 87). “In 1920, the appearance of Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie’s first novel not only introduced one of fiction’s most ingenuous investigators but also launched the career of “one of the greatest and most popular detective story writers of the 20th century.” The legendary Poirot soon became the figure who “still comes closer to symbolizing his profession in the popular mind than any story-book detective since the Holmes whose methods he professes to deplore? few sleuths have been more rewarding than Poirot at the height of his powers” (Steinbrunner & Penzler, 84; Haycraft, 132). This book was published in the United States as Murder in Retrospect. Christie also adapted it into a play in 1960, Go Back for Murder, which edited Poirot out of the story. Book very good, with text generally clean, some soiling to original cloth. Dust jacket very good, with light soiling, mild darkening and a bit of chipping to extremities, and one repair to verso. A nice copy of a book generally found in relatively poor condition, most rare and desirable inscribed.