Appointment With Death.

CHRISTIE, Agatha.

Item Number: 122982

London: The Crime Club by Collins, 1938.

Rare first edition of Christie’s classic Poirot murder mystery set in Jerusalem. Octavo, original cloth. Very good in the scarce original dust jacket which is in near fine condition and completely unrestored. Ownership inscription. The first edition of this Christie title is scarce, copies in the original dust jacket exceedingly so.

Inspired by Christie's travels throughout the Middle East with her second husband Sir Max Mallowan, Appointment with Death was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on May 2, 1938, and subsequently in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company later that same year. The plot follows Belgian detective Hercule Poirot while on holiday in Jerusalem, when Mrs. Boynton, a sadistic stepmother, is found dead in Petra. Poirot claims that he can solve the mystery within twenty-four hours simply by interviewing the suspects (mostly members of her family), even though he has no way of knowing whether it was murder. Simon Nowell-Smith's review of the mystery in the Times Literary Supplement concluded that "Poirot, if the mellowing influence of time has softened many of his mannerisms, has lost none of his skill. His examination of the family, the psychologists and the few others in the party, his sifting of truth from half-truth and contradiction, his playing off one suspect against another and gradual elimination of each in turn are in Mrs. Christie's most brilliant style."