The Blog of the ABAA

A 1924 first edition of Agatha Christie’s Poirot Investigates was recently sold at auction for a whopping £40,630 ($63,195.90) because of its very rare dust jacket, on which the famed Detective Poirot is pictured. The collection of short stories was not Christie’s first Poirot book, but it is the first to feature the detective’s name in the title and a rare instance of his depiction. The drawing originally appeared in The Sketch, an illustrated British weekly that was the first to publish Christie’s stories (and in all ended up published 49 of her tales between 1923 and 1924). The detective looks characteristically dapper in a morning suit with a bow tie, poised with his top hat and white gloves in hand.

The dust jacket was slightly chipped but otherwise said to be in “remarkable fresh condition”. Chris Albury, a representative from the Dominic Winter auction house, noted the rarity of the dust jacket, particularly because readers of that time period would often remove the jacket and throw it away after purchasing a book. “There might be some others with the Christie family but for collectors this was probably the only chance they would have of owning one,” he said. Mr. Jonkers of Jonkers Rare Books concurred that “it is very uncommon to find this in a dust wrapper” and that he “know[s] of only two others in existence.”

The book had a pre-sale estimate of £3,000-£5,000, but frenzied bidding by collectors and dealers quickly drove the price up. The previous record for a Christie book was set in 2009 when a copy of her first novel, Mysterious Affair at Styles, sold for £10,000.

Agatha Christie novel with rare dust jacket showing Poirot for first time in 1924 sells for £40,000…and doesn’t he look like Suchet? [Daily Mail]