Miss Marple and Mystery (89 page)

This table aims to present all Agatha Christie’s short stories published between 1923 and 1971, starting with her series of Hercule Poirot cases for
The Sketch
magazine and ending with her last contributions to the genre, the stories for children in
Star Over Bethlehem
and, finally,
The Harlequin Tea Set
. It should be noted that a number of stories that first appeared in weekly or monthly magazines were subsequently re-worked in book form, where they became simply chapters in a larger work, no longer independent short stories. In
Partners in Crime
, for example, some short stories were subdivided into smaller chapters, while 13 separate stories were re-worked into the episodic novel,
The Big Four
, and are not generally regarded as individual stories in their own right. There are also a handful of stories which were rewritten so substantially that they appear separately in different books, for example
The Mystery of the Baghdad/Spanish Chest
. This all makes counting up the stories very difficult indeed!

However, excluding
The Big Four
(for the reason stated above) and including the published variants, there are a total of 159 stories published in book form in the UK:

Hercule Poirot – 56

Miss Marple – 20

Tommy & Tuppence – 14

Harley Quin – 14

Parker Pyne – 14

Non-series stories – 35

Children’s stories – 6

Titles are listed in order of traced first publication date. Actual first publication details are given where known. It is generally assumed that practically everything Christie wrote – novels, short stories, poetry – appeared first in a magazine or newspaper, prior to the hardback edition. However, despite exhaustive research, it has not always been possible to trace a magazine appearance for every story, in which case the first hard-back publication is given.

Whilst most stories first appeared in British magazines or newspapers, a number premiered in America, and these are duly noted. Where both ‘firsts’ were close together, or where a subsequent publication gave rise to an interesting variation in title for the story, both are given.

K
ARL
P
IKE
2008

The ABC Murders

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

After the Funeral

And Then There Were None

Appointment with Death

At Bertram’s Hotel

The Big Four

The Body in the Library

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Cards on the Table

A Caribbean Mystery

Cat Among the Pigeons

The Clocks

Crooked House

Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case

Dead Man’s Folly

Death Comes as the End

Death in the Clouds

Death on the Nile

Destination Unknown

Dumb Witness

Elephants Can Remember

Endless Night

Evil Under the Sun

Five Little Pigs

4.50 from Paddington

Hallowe’en Party

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

Hickory Dickory Dock

The Hollow

The Hound of Death

The Labours of Hercules

The Listerdale Mystery

Lord Edgware Dies

The Man in the Brown Suit

The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side

Miss Marple’s Final Cases

The Moving Finger

Mrs McGinty’s Dead

The Murder at the Vicarage

Murder in Mesopotamia

Murder in the Mews

A Murder is Announced

Murder is Easy

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Murder on the Links

Murder on the Orient Express

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Mr Quin

The Mystery of the Blue Train

Nemesis

NorM?

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Ordeal by Innocence

The Pale Horse

Parker Pyne Investigates

Partners in Crime

Passenger to Frankfurt

Peril at End House

A Pocket Full of Rye

Poirot Investigates

Poirot’s Early Cases

Postern of Fate

Problem at Pollensa Bay

Sad Cypress

The Secret Adversary

The Secret of Chimneys

The Seven Dials Mystery

The Sittaford Mystery

Sleeping Murder

Sparkling Cyanide

Taken at the Flood

They Came to Baghdad

They Do It With Mirrors

Third Girl

The Thirteen Problems

Three-Act Tragedy

Towards Zero

While the Light Lasts

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

Plays adapted into novels
Black Coffee

Spider’s Web

The Unexpected Guest

Novels under the Nom de Plume of ‘Mary Westmacott’

Absent in the Spring

The Burden

A Daughter’s a Daughter

Giant’s Bread

The Rose and the Yew Tree

Unfinished Portrait

Memoirs

Come, Tell Me How You Live

An Autobiography

VOLUME 1

THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY

It’s seven in the morning, and the body of a young woman is found in the Bantrys’ library. But who is she? And what’s the connection with another dead girl? Miss Marple is invited to solve the mystery – before tongues start to wag …

THE MOVING FINGER

The quiet inhabitants of Lymstock are unsettled by a sudden outbreak of hate-mail. But when one of the recipients commits suicide, only Miss Marple questions the coroner’s verdict. Is this the work of a poison pen? Or of a poisoner?

A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED

An advertisement in the
Chipping Cleghorn Gazette
announces the time and place of a forthcoming murder. Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at the appointed time when, without warning, the lights go out …

4.50 FROM PADDINGTON

As two trains run together, side by side, Mrs McGillicuddy watches a murder. Then the other train draws away. With no other witnesses, not even a body, who will take her story seriously? Then she remembers her old friend, Miss Marple …

‘Suspense is engendered from the very start, and maintained very skilfully until the final revelation’

Times Literary Supplement

VOLUME II

A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY

As Miss Marple dozes in the West Indian sun, an old soldier talks of elephant-shooting and scandals. Then he dies – and the deceptively frail detective finds herself investigating a most exotic murder …

A POCKET FULL OF RYE

Rex Fortescue, ‘king’ of a financial empire, was in his counting house; his ‘queen’ was in the parlour … There are baffling similarities between the rhyme and the crime and it takes all Miss Marple’s ingenuity to find them …

THE MIRROR CRACK’D FROM SIDE TO SIDE

Marina Gregg, the famous film actress, witnesses a murder in her country home. But what gave her the expression of frozen terror that only Dolly Bantry saw? Dolly, of course, knows just who can find out: her old friend, Miss Marple …

THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS

To fulfil a promise to an old schoolfriend, Miss Marple stays in a country house – with 200 juvenile delinquents and seven heirs to an old lady’s fortune. One of them is a murderer – with a talent, it seems, for being in two places at once …

‘Throws off the false clues and misleading events as only a master of the art can do’

New York Times

VOLUME III

NEMESIS

Miss Marple receives a letter from a friend who died only a week earlier – a letter urging her to investigate a crime. But he has failed to tell her the nature of the crime. The only clue he leaves is an almost unfathomable quotation …

SLEEPING MURDER

Since Gwenda moved into her new home, odd things have started to happen. In fear, she turns to Miss Marple to exorcise her ghosts – and unravel a ‘perfect’ crime that has escaped detection for 18 years …

AT BERTRAM’S HOTEL

A holiday in London draws Miss Marple to Bertram’s Hotel, where she can indulge herself in all the comforts of a bygone era. But she senses that something sinister lurks beneath the well-polished veneer …

THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE

The Colonel’s body is discovered in the Vicarage study.Yet only a few hours before, the vicar himself declared, ‘Anyone who murdered Colonel Prothero would be doing the world at large a service.’ Miss Marple finds it all most intriguing …

‘Full of freshness and charm … Miss Marple is spry, shrewd and compassionate’

Sunday Telegraph