CHRISTIE, Agatha. Death on the Nile. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. 1938.
8vo. Original orange cloth, stamped in black to front cover and spine, top edge stained blue, in original illustrated dust jacket with the price of $2.00 at the top of the inside front flap; pp. [vi], 326; jacket lightly worn at extremities with a few short closed tears, chipping to head of spine and loss at tail, cloth a little toned where exposed; offsetting to pastedowns and free endpapers, faint spotting to first few leaves, but otherwise a very good, clean copy.
First US edition, in a bright, unrestored dust jacket.
Arguably Agatha Christie’s most popular detective novel, Death on the Nile stands as one of literature’s most celebrated “travel mysteries,” in which the tranquillity of an Egyptian cruise is shattered by the discovery of a young woman shot in the head. Although Hercule Poirot’s initial observations suggest an obvious culprit, nothing is quite as it seems…
Christie drew directly on her own extensive travels for the novel’s composition. After marrying the archaeologist Max Mallowan, she accompanied him on excavations, contributing independently by cataloguing, photographing, and even helping to restore artefacts. She wrote Death on the Nile during a stay in southern Egypt, reflecting on the real personalities she had encountered during a 1933 voyage aboard the luxury vessel S.S. Sudan. Unlike the ill-fated newlyweds of the novel, Christie and Mallowan’s own romance endured happily for the rest of their lives.
The book was first published in London by Collins’ Crime Club on 1 November 1937, just in time for Christmas sales. This US first edition was only released the following February.
SKU: 2121866