A Collectors Guide to Christie Anthologies.

Collectors of Christie’s full-length novels have plenty of accurate resources to reference to determine true first printings. However, short stories are much harder to collect as first hardback printings are not solely in omnibus collections - ones where all the stories were by Agatha Christie. Examples of omnibusses includes Poirot Investigates, Partners in Crime and Parker Pyne Investigates.

Almost two dozen short stories have their true first appearance in anthologies not omnibusses. Anthologies are short story collections that feature many different authors. Many Christie collectors are unaware of these anthologies and their place in a collection of her works. I’ve already written numerous articles about individual anthologies but have not previously provided a complete resource documenting all known anthologies.

First Edition Short Stories in Anthologies:

The books below are hard back books that contain an Agatha Christie short story that had not yet appeared in any hardback book - either in the UK or the USA. Thus, these are all official first editions of that specific Christie story. In later years these stories would appear in Christie-specific omnibusses, but these anthologies all pre-date the earliest known omnibus.

Philomel Cottage (1929). Included in The World's 100 Best Detective Stories, Volume 4, Funk & Wagnalls, New York, USA, 1929. More details on this anthology at (link). For collectors of British firsts, My Best Detective Story, published by Faber & Faber, London, in 1931 also contained this story prior to its inclusion in The Listerdale Mystery (1934). The Faber edition was originally priced 8s 6d on the front flap, while later printings retained the same artwork but now showed a price of 3/6 on the spine

The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly (1929). Also included in The World's 100 Best Detective Stories, Volume 4, Funk & Wagnalls, New York, USA, 1929 (same images above left and centre). It is not known to exist in a British anthology prior to its publication by Collins in 1974 in the omnibus Poirot's Early Cases.

The Under Dog (1929). Included in 2 New Crime Stories, Volume 287, Readers Library, London, UK, 1929. More details on this anthology with only one other story (Oppenheim's Blackman's Woods) can be found here (link). There is no US anthology containing this story.

The Tuesday Night Club (1929). Included in The Best Detective Stories of the Year - 1928, Faber & Gwyer, UK, 1929. This anthology is exceptionally collectible as it contains the first Miss Marple story in book form. I do not have a jacket for this book. If anyone has an image they are willing to share please do. Also note that the name 'Faber & Gwyer' precedes 'Faber & Faber' as this was the firm's name prior to Geoffrey Faber buying out Lady Gwyer. Faber changed the name during the printing of this anthology so there are two states - one that says Faber & Gwyer (the true 1st) and one that states Faber & Faber (the 2nd state). It was also included in the American anthology The Best English Detective Stories of 1928, published in 1929 by Horace Liveright, New York. It is unclear whether the British or American edition is the true first. More details at (link).

The Idol House of Astarte (1930), plus

The Thumb Mark of St. Peter (1930). Both are included in The Big Book of Detective Stories, William Clowes & Sons, London, UK, 1930. They did not appear in a US anthology prior to the publication of The Tuesday Club Murders in 1933. Thank you to Chuck Vukotich for noticing the inclusion of The Idol House of Astarte here - something I'd missed. While the collection also includes The Tuesday Night Club that was in the prior anthology discussed above. Jacket image for this book is still sought!

S.O.S. (1930), plus,

The Third Floor Flat (1930). Both are included in Best Detective Stories of the Year - 1929, Faber & Faber, UK, 1930.  Again, I do not have a jacket for this book so if any collectors do please share an image. Later this was retitled as 'Second Series' (jacket shown below) to help it age better in the reprint market. Both of these Christie stories also appeared in the American version of this book - Best English Detective Stories of 1929, published by Horace Liveright, New York later in 1930. Again the sequence of printing between the British and American edition is unclear. More details on these anthologies at (link). 

The Adventure of the Clapham Cook (1931). Included in Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror: 2nd Series, published by Victor Gollanz, UK. In the USA, it was included in The Second Omnibus of Crime: The World's Great Crime Stories (1932) (image credit: Chip Cowell) published by Coward-McCann, New York, USA, in 1932. For more details on this short story and its printings go to: (link).

Accident (1933). Included in My Best Thriller, published by Faber and Faber, London, UK, 1933. In the UK the story was included in the omnibus The Listerdale Mystery. However, there was no UK version of that book. In the US it also first appeared in an anthology. Murder Without Tears: An Anthology of Crime was published by Sheriden House, New York in 1946. This is prior to its inclusion in Witness for the Prosecution & Other Stories which was not printed by Dodd Mead & Co. until 1948. Full details on this story & its printings at: (link).

The Second Gong (1933). Included in Many Mysteries, published by Rich & Cowan, UK, 1933. There is no US anthology that contained this short story. Despite it being expanded into Dead Man's Mirror which was published as a novella in 1937, The Second Gong was included in Dodd Mead & Co.'s omnibus collection The Witness for the Prosecution & Other Stories (1948). For more details on this Poirot story see: (link).

The Boomerang Clue (1934). Included in Six Redbook Novels, published by Redbook, USA, 1934 (image above). The book is better known today by its British title of Why Didn't They Ask Evans? It is uncommon to have a complete novel in an anthology and Redbook did lightly abridge this probably due to space issues. More details at: (link).

The Chess Problem (1941). Included in 101 Years Entertainment, Little, Brown & Co, Boston, USA, 1941 (jacket image credit: Chip Cowell). While this Poirot story did appear years earlier in The Big Four (Collins & Dodd Mead, 1927), this is the short story version that first appeared in The Sketch (UK, 1924). More details at (link).

The Tape-Measure Murder (1943). Included in The Female of the Species: The Great Women Detectives and Criminals, Little Brown, USA, 1943. The book's title is rather odd and I doubt it would be chosen today! The first appearance of The Tape-Measure Murder but under the alternate title Village Murder. The anthology The Fifth Mystery Book (Farrar, US, 1944) contains the first printing under its correct title. There is no British anthology. The first appearance in the UK was in Miss Marple's Final Cases (Collins, 1979). More details can be found at (link).

The Double Clue (1948). plus,

The Perfect Maid (1948). Both these stories are included in 20th Century Detective Stories, World Publishing Co, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 1948. There were no British anthologies with these stories with both appearing in Christie Omnibus collections in the 1970s (Poirot's Early Cases and Miss Marples Final Cases respectively). More details on this anthology can be found at (link).

Greenshaw's Folly (1958). Included in Ellery Queen's 13th Annual, Random House, New York, USA, 1958. Note: this is not the Poirot story that was later expanded into Dead Man's Folly but is a Miss Marple story. There is no British anthology with this version and its first UK appearance was in the omnibus collection The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (Collins 1960). This story has an interesting background and more details can be found at this (link).

Harlequin's Tea Set (1971). Included in Winter's Crimes 3, MacMillan, London, UK, 1971. In America, it appeared in the Ellery Queen edited anthology Murdercade, published by Random House (1975). Both are prior to the UK (1991) and US (1997) omnibusses that contained this story. More details on these first appearances of this Mr. Quin short story are at (link).

The Incident of the Dog's Ball (2009). Included in Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, HarperCollins, London, UK, 2009. This short story was later expanded into Dumb Witness. This book is not an anthology but I have included it since it is the first book appearance. The first anthology appearance was in Bodies from the Library 3, published by HarperCollins, London in 2020.

The Wife of the Kenite (2018). Included in Bodies from the Library: Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Agatha Christie and other Masters of Golden Age, published by HarperCollins, London, in 2018 (image above right).

For Collectors of British Firsts.

The following are hard back books that contain a short story that was already included in the Agatha Christie omnibus Poirot Investigates in the USA, but first appeared in the UK in an anthology. This is because the American Dodd Mead version of this book had three additional short stories that were not present in the Bodley Head (UK) printing. The third story was The Lost Mine, but I've been unable to locate it in any British printing prior to Poirot's Early Cases (Collins 1974).

The Veiled Lady (1935). Included in: The Hospital Centenary Gift Book, Harrap & Co, UK, 1935 (image below left). More details on this anthology at: (link).

The Chocolate Box (1964). Included in Best Detective Stories 2, Faber & Faber, London, UK, 1964 (image above right)).

For Collectors of American Firsts.

The following are hard back books that contain a short story that was already included in an Agatha Christie collection in the UK, but first appeared in the USA in an anthology. All four stories below were all included in the British collection The Hound of Death and Other Stories (Odhams, 1933) for which there was no US equivalent.

Wireless (1940). Included in Line-Up, Dodd Mead & Co., New York, USA (1940). The first hardback collection with this title was Witness for the Prosecution (Dodd Mead, 1948) but under the alternate title of Where There's a Will. Of note, this anthology was reissued as a paperback by Avon Books in 1942 under the title The Avon Book of Modern Crime Stories which would is the first global paperback with this story.

The three stories below did not appear in a US collection until The Golden Ball and Other Stories (Dodd, 1971).

The Last Seance (1954). Included in: Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time: 19 Astounding Stories of Science Fiction, Random House, New York, USA, 1954. Collectors should be cautious of Book Club editions (noted on flap). The correct first state edition is priced $2.95 on the flap and the rear jacket panel references three other collections (cover image below left).

The Hound of Death (1969). Included in: Shapes of the Supernatural, Doubleday, New York, USA, 1969 (image below centre).

The Lamp (1970). Included in A Gathering of Ghosts, Funk & Wagnalls, USA, 1970 (image below right).

Values.

For those anthologies where a link is provided, then more insights on values are provided in those articles for that specific book. In general any of these anthologies from the 1920s and 1930s will prove hard to find in a jacket. There are numerous jackets I've never even seen for some of these. However, when one appears for sale many sellers may be unaware of the significance of the book so the price asked may offer great value. In general, the early British books are likely worth up to £500 ($650) in a very good jacket or £100 ($130) unjacketed, but still in very good condition. American books generally hard larger print runs so availability improves, reducing prices by up to 50%.

Once you move into the 1940s and 1950s, prices drop substantially as availability improves so it starts to become more a question of condition and willingness to acquire, but values would be 30-40% of the books from the 30s. From the 1960s onwards, patience will generally allow you to find any of these books at used book prices.

Insights, Additions & Corrections Wanted.

Since I am not aware of any definitive, accurate resource on Christie stories in anthologies, it is highly possible there are errors, missed anthologies or other corrections this article needs. Reader input is most welcome so that I can continue to ensure this is a reliable resource for readers and collectors. A thank you to collector Chuck Vukotich who inspired me to finally put this article and index together.

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