Agatha Christie in the 1920s

I've always had a bit of a love-hate affair with Wikipedia. Back when it was still a novelty, some of my graduate level students would use it rather liberally as a source for academic papers. And while I discouraged that kind of use, I've come to realize it can be a help even in researching more academic sorts of topics, especially if you focus on the "external links" at the end, which can lead you to good websites of primary sources.

But one thing I've come to love about Wikipedia is the thoroughness of many of its articles on pop culture and literature. I love looking up favorite authors there, not only to find links to good sources, but because you can also find full bibliographies right there at your fingertips. Without having to lug out large reference books (which, depending on publication date, might or might not have a full listing of a more contemporary author's books) you can peruse a full listing of an author's works, usually in publication order.

I'm a sucker for publication order. There's something about it that satisfies all my inner "J" (that's the "J" that comes at the end of the Myers-Briggs personality type test) the same J'ness that loved doing shelf-reads when I worked in a library. I love seeing the order of things. In the case of an author's work, I love seeing the order in which they wrote their books, especially if they wrote a lot of them. That doesn't mean I will always go back and read their books in a certain order, or that I won't have favorites I return to disproportionately, but it's such fun to note the development of characters, themes, images and ideas when you read an author from start to finish.

Agatha Christie, the great mystery novelist, has long been one of my favorite writers. I discovered her when I was about fifteen. Our local library had at least two or three shelves stuffed with her books, and I worked my way through the lot of them. Of course, back in the technological dark ages (long before Wikipedia!) I didn't have a handy list of what she wrote when. With Agatha, more of a pulp novelist (though a brilliant one) it matters less what order you read things in than it would with a more sheerly "literary" author. But I still did little inner cartwheels when I came across her Wikipedia bibliography not long ago. Suddenly I could see when and where she introduced her various detectives, and note where her particular masterpieces arrived in her writing career. Great fun for a "J" gal like me.

So I've begun working my way through, in order, Christie's novels of the 1920s, the first decade in which she was published. I think Hercule Poirot, with his love of method and order, would be really pleased! In the last few years I'd read the first two anyway, when I'd gone in search of the first Poirot and the first Tommy and Tuppence. I plan to review them all on Epinions, a fact which I hope won't annoy the ever-patient book category leads too much, since I'm having to get them to add some of these to the database. (When I requested she add a book from 1923, the CL informed me that she thought this was probably the oldest "new" book she'd ever been asked to add to the database!)

If you're a Christie fan...or thinking of becoming one...I hope you'll take a look at my Christie reviews from the 1920s. Here are the first three (linked) with the last just posted this morning. As I keeping reading and adding to my reviews, I'll edit this listing and try to give a shout-out.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) -- the first novel starring Hercule Poirot, the amazing Belgian detective, and his stolid English sidekick Hastings

The Secret Adversary (1922) -- the dashing crime novel that introduces Tommy and Tuppence, two of my favorite Christie detectives (though they only starred in a handful of books over the years)

The Murder on the Links (1923) -- Poirot and Hastings together again! Poirot proves the superiority of his detective methods, and Hastings finds romance.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) showcases Christie's audacious artistry and provides one of the best surprise twists ever. Poirot is on the job again, though the beginning of the story finds him "retired" and growing vegetable marrows.

The Big Four (1927) brings Poirot and Hastings back together to hunt down four arch-criminals trying to take over the world!