Hercule Poirot made his first public appearance in 1920 at the age, one guesses, of about 60. He finally breathed his metaphorical last in 1975 at the age of maybe 75 or 80. And in that short span of time - either 55 years or about 20, depending on how you count it - Poirot became one of England's most profitable and ubiquitous export commodities.
But it's very clear that his creator, Agatha Christie, did not at first intend for it to go that way. She made a very definite attempt to end the Hercule Poirot saga in the mid-1920s, when his story consisted simply of three novels and 25 short stories.
It is that first Hercule Poirot bibliography, the one Christie clearly intended to leave for posterity when she typed up the last few words of "The Crag in the Dolomites" sometime in 1924, that is presented in this collection.
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.
This is the best audio book! The narrator is superb! He really brings Poirot and Hastings to life. It will be something I listen to many times. I highly recommend the audio version. The stories are told chronologically, so you really get a feel for the characters of Poirot and Hastings as well as their relationship with each other, and their little quirks, I just love it.