More unknown Christie material to be published

06.10.10 - Graeme Neill - The Bookseller

An unseen Miss Marple short story will be among the never previously released Agatha Christie material in HarperCollins' follow-up to John Curran's Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks.

Agatha Christie's Notebooks and Beyond will be published worldwide in September 2011. Among the revelations in the new book is the original ending for Christie's first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was changed on her publisher's insistence, and the notes on the novel Christie was working on just before she died.

Curran has worked with the author's grandson, Mathew Prichard, to establish the Agatha Christie archive and has single-handedly transcribed the contents of 73 handwritten notebooks Christie left before her death in 1976. She was 85.

David Brawn, publishing director of estates at HarperCollins, said: "The notebooks proved to be such a mine of new information about Agatha that I deliberately persuaded John to hold back some gems for a second volume.

"Little did I realise he saved the best material for book two. It will also contain three unpublished short stories by Agatha Christie, one of which is a Miss Marple tale she completely rewrote for publication. The differences are a revelation."