Оглавление
Агата Кристи. Agatha Christie’s Complete Secret Notebooks
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
PREFACE
Shadows in Sunlight – Interlude at Greenway, Summer 1954
1
The Beginning of a Career
Poirot Investigates …
Verdict …
Poirot and the Big Four. Hercule Poirot
Readability
Plotting
Fairness
Productivity
2
The Evidence of the Notebooks
… idea in an exercise book …
… what I invariably do is lose the exercise book …
… I usually have about half a dozen on hand …
… if I had kept all these things neatly sorted …
… and filed …
… and labelled …
… something scribbled down …
… a kind of sketch of a plot …
… it often stimulates me, if not to write that identical plot at least to write something else …
3
Agatha Christie at Work
Dumb Witnesses
Pigeon among the Cats
Motive and Opportunity
Remembered Deaths
The ABC of Murder
Ten Little Possibilities
Destinations Unknown
Surprise, Surprise!
4
Rule of Three
THE RULES OF DETECTIVE FICTION – POE, KNOX, VAN DINE. Edgar Allan Poe: inventor of the detective story
The brilliant amateur detective
The less-than-brilliant narrator-friend
The wrongly suspected person
The sealed room
The unexpected solution
The ‘armchair detective’ and pure reasoning
The interpretation of a code
The trail of false clues laid by the murderer
The unmasking of the least likely suspect
Psychological deduction
The most obvious solution
S.S. Van Dine’s ‘Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories’
Ronald Knox’s Detective Story Decalogue
Agatha Christie’s Rule of Three
Fairness
The crime
The detective
The murderer
The murder method
To be avoided
The bogus séance to force a confession
The unmasking of a twin or look-alike
The cipher/code-letter
The comparison of cigarette butts
RULE OF THREE: SUMMARY
5
Crime Writers in the Notebooks
The Detection Club in the Notebooks
Other Crime Writers in the Notebooks
Agatha Christie in the Notebooks
I
The First Decade 1920–1929
The Mysterious Affair at Styles. 21 January 1921
THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES
The Man in the Brown Suit. 22 August 1924
The Secret of Chimneys. 12 June 1925
The Mystery of the Blue Train. 29 March 1928
My Favourite Stories and ‘The Man Who Knew’
THE MAN WHO KNEW
II
The Second Decade 1930–1939
‘The Bird with the Broken Wing’ April 1930
‘Manx Gold’ May 1930
The Murder at the Vicarage. 13 October 1930
The Sittaford Mystery. 7 September 1931
‘The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest’ January 1932 ‘The Mystery of the Spanish Chest’ September 1960
Peril at End House. 7 February 1932
‘The Second Gong’ July 1932
‘Death on the Nile’ (short story) July 1933
Lord Edgware Dies. 4 September 1933
Three Act Tragedy. 7 January 1935
Death in the Clouds. 1 July 1935
‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ August 1935
The ABC Murders. 6 January 1936
‘Problem at Sea’ February 1936
‘Triangle at Rhodes’ May 1936
‘The Regatta Mystery’ June 1936
Murder in Mesopotamia. 6 July 1936
‘Murder in the Mews’ December 1936
Dumb Witness. 5 July 1937
The Incident of the Dog’s Ball
When was it written?
Clue No. 1
Clue No. 2
Clue No. 3
Clue No. 4
Clue No. 5
Clue No. 6
Conclusion?
Why was it never published?
Clue No. 1
Clue No. 2
Clue No. 3
Conclusion
THE INCIDENT OF THE DOG’S BALL23
i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
ix
Death on the Nile (novel) 1 November 1937
‘The Dream’ February 1938
Appointment with Death. 2 May 1938
‘How I Created Hercule Poirot’
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. 19 December 1938
And Then There Were None. 6 November 1939
III
The Third Decade 1940–1949
Sad Cypress. 4 March 1940
One, Two, Buckle my Shoe. 4 November 1940
‘Four and Twenty Blackbirds’ March 1941
Evil under the Sun. 9 June 1941
N or M? 24 November 1941
Miss Marple and ‘The Case of the Caretaker’s Wife’
THE CASE OF THE CARETAKER’S WIFE
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
The Body in the Library. 11 May 1942
Five Little Pigs. 11 January 1943
The Moving Finger. 14 June 1943
Towards Zero. 3 July 1944
‘Strange Jest’ July 1944
Death Comes as the End. 29 March 1945
Sparkling Cyanide. 3 December 1945
The Hollow. 25 November 1946
Three Blind Mice (Radio 30 May 1947; Short Story 31 December 1948; Play 25 November 1952)
The Labours of Hercules. 8 September 1947
‘The Nemean Lion’
‘The Lernean Hydra’
‘The Arcadian Deer’
‘The Erymanthian Boar’
‘The Augean Stables’
‘The Stymphalean Birds’
‘The Cretan Bull’
‘The Horses of Diomedes’
‘The Girdle of Hyppolita’
‘The Flock of Geryon’
‘The Apples of the Hesperides’
‘The Capture of Cerberus’
‘The Capture of Cerberus’ (1939)
When was it written?
Why was it never published?
THE CAPTURE OF CERBERUS. i
ii
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
viii
ix
x
xi
Butter in a Lordly Dish. 13 January 1948
Taken at the Flood. 12 November 1948
Crooked House. 23 May 1949
IV
The Fourth Decade 1950–1959
A Murder is Announced. 5 June 1950
They Came to Baghdad. 5 March 1951
Mrs McGinty’s Dead. 3 March 1952
They Do It with Mirrors. 17 November 1952
After the Funeral. 18 May 1953
A Pocket Full of Rye. 9 November 1953
Personal Call. 31 May 1954
Destination Unknown. 1 November 1954
Spider’s Web. 14 December 1954
Hickory Dickory Dock. 31 October 1955
Dead Man’s Folly. 5 November 1956
‘Greenshaw’s Folly’ December 1956
4.50 from Paddington. 4 November 1957
The Unexpected Guest. 12 August 1958
Ordeal by Innocence. 3 November 1958
Cat among the Pigeons. 2 November 1959
V
The Fifth Decade 1960–1969
The Pale Horse. 6 November 1961
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. 12 November 1962
Rule of ThreeThe Rats; Afternoon at the Seaside; The Patient. 20 December 1962
The Rats
Afternoon at the Seaside
The Patient
The Clocks. 7 November 1963
A Caribbean Mystery. 16 November 1964
At Bertram’s Hotel. 15 November 1965
Third Girl. 14 November 1966
Endless Night. 30 October 1967
By the Pricking of my Thumbs. 11 November 1968
Hallowe’en Party. 10 November 1969
VI
The Sixth Decade 1970–1976
Passenger to Frankfurt. 15 September 1970
Nemesis. 18 October 1971
Fiddlers Three. 3 August 1972
Elephants Can Remember. 6 November 1972
Akhnaton. Published 14 May 1973
Postern of Fate. 29 October 1973
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case. 22 September 1975
Sleeping Murder. 11 October 1976
POSTSCRIPT
Unused Ideas
MURDER-DISCOVERED-AFTERWARDS
THE VICTORY BALL
THE ‘PRIME MINISTER’ AND COMPANION
THE FORTUNE TELLER
THE CLUEDO CASE
THE PLASTIC SURGEON
THE LOCUM DOCTOR
THE ‘HANDED TO’ IDEA
THE BRITISH MUSEUM
THE BOMBED BUILDING
THE HELLENIC CRUISE
THE GIRL-IN-THE-BAHAMAS
THE MOUSETRAP II
THE REUNION DINNER
THE EXPERIMENT
Appendix 1
Agatha Christie Chronology
Appendix 2
Alphabetical List of Agatha Christie Titles
Endnotes. 2. The Evidence of the Notebooks
4. Rule of Three
I: The First Decade 1920–1929
II: The Second Decade 1930–1939
III: The Third Decade 1940–1949
IV: The Fourth Decade 1950–1959
V: The Fifth Decade 1960–1969
VI: The Sixth Decade 1970–1976
Postscript: Unused Ideas
Index of Titles
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
