Tom Adams' Archives Uncovered (Part 2)

This is Part 2 in a 3-Part Series.

Tom Adams: The Art of the Artist. An original retrospective into Tom Adams' iconic Agatha Christie book covers was presented on Thursday September 18th, 2025 at the International Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay, Devon. The talk focused on my findings from researching within his personal archives. It was accompanied by an exhibition at Torre Abbey museum titled Tom Adams & Agatha Christie: Partners in Crime. In addition to giving the presentation, I assisted with the curation of the exhibition which was designed to present many of the items I discussed in the talk. Because of the length of the talk and number of images to share, I have broken it into three instalments. I've edited the content be more suitable for those reading online versus an in-person talk. In addition, I am sharing the actual slides used, so they are likely best viewed on a computer rather than a phone.

To read Tom Adams' Archives Uncovered - Part 1: (link)

To read the review of the Exhibition: (link)

To read the final instalment, subscribe via the link at the foot of this article so that you receive an email when it is published.

The Presentation (Part 2).

So far I haven’t focused on any covers that integrated the human form. But Tom did sporadically use human elements – more so on his American covers, but there were a number of British covers that include them. First, we’ll look at his use of models to create the scene he wanted – and then later we’ll look at how he used existing images to support his art.

One of the earliest images from his archives that shows the use of a model is this one – a hand holding a bullet and a chocolate. Perhaps an image you recognize.

This cover from 1967 is familiar to many as it's a classic Miss Marple novel in addition to being a highly recognizable image - At Bertram's Hotel.

This idea of a model holding an item was revisited in several other covers. Here we see several studio photos from different distances where he was looking for the right aesthetic.

This image was intregrated into the cover for the American edition of By The Pricking of My Thumbs, published in 1972 by Pocket Books. You’ll notice that the American covers provided Tom with the ability to integrate much more artistic narrative – both by having a more complex image with multiple components but also by being a landscape design that wrapped around the cover from front to rear.

The last example I'm sharing in this category of a posed model can be seen below. Here are two studio photos that let us see Tom combining the use of a model with still life staging. These elements first appeared on the British printing of this title, but were reused on the American version a few years later. Any guesses?

It’s from Death Comes as the End, first published by Fontana in 1968. As we saw earlier with his rotation of the dagger, Tom clearly had framed the final design before he took the model's photo, knowing he could just rotate the image.

Media Images.

In addition to Tom’s ability to create his own designs within his studio, his archives also show that he frequently used media images and other forms of source material as inspiration for his art.

In 1969, Fontana published Death in the Clouds – arguably one of his more famous images and a cover that also made it into Dr. Who. However, Tom named the plane ‘Hengist’, not ‘Prometheus’ as it was in the book though the type of plane was accurate. Why?

Well in Tom’s archives we find numerous images of airplanes that he had gathered as source material showing how seriously he took the assignment (certainly when compared to an earlier Fontana cover that had a jet plane on it).

One item in Tom’s archive is a magazine article with a picture of The Maharaja of Jodhpur with his children, next to a Handley Page aircraft, at Croydon airport in November 1932. When one considers that this is the same plane Christie used in Death in the Clouds, which also landed at Croydon airport, and was written shortly after this photo was taken, it’s almost as if Tom found an image that may even have influenced Agatha herself.

And in it, we also see why Tom named the plane ‘Hengist’ – not Prometheus. While it’s an oversight, its inclusion reminds us of the effort Tom made to create a great cover.

Another cover with an airplane on it was the 1971 printing of Peril at End House. In Tom’s archives, we see the source material that inspired him and we see how he framed his art – moving the figures closer together – almost as if embracing to imply a relationship between a woman and the pilot. Of note, the image is of an aviation pioneer who is about to depart on his flight to Australia in 1932 that he completed in 9 days setting a record.

Again – why is that relevant, well the book was published in 1932, involved a renowned pilot, a relationship between him and the lead character, and some Australians… all in all a perfect choice to inspire his cover. And for me, these sorts of previously hidden nuggets of detail, enhance the appreciation of Tom’s craft as an artist and the seriousness with which he approached each cover.

One of Tom’s most recognizable covers is his Hallowe’en Party – first published in 1972. The apple with the skull revealing itself under the skin is an iconic image – but how was he able to make the dripping appear so correct? In his archives we see that he created the scene by suspending an apple over his sink, pouring water over it, and capturing a photo of the moment. This allowed him to perfectly capture how the liquid actually flowed over the apple and dripped from it. Also, we see that the image of a girl in the mirror was inspired by an image he’d found in a magazine. This blending of source material and a studio photo are used here to great effect.

This blending together of studio photographs and source material from magazines was used so effectively by Tom in many covers – and as the complexity evolved it turned into a very creative form of collaging. Below we see the archival material from another famous cover he painted where he’d found a face he liked in a magazine, scratched out the eye, and then photographed it, and then melded together other source material and photos to create the design he sought. Any ideas?

Well the end result, shown here along with how he must have positioned these images, is his 1967 cover for A Caribbean Mystery with Major Palgrave’s rather gruesome head.

Earlier we looked at one of Tom's American covers. It was one 26 covers he created in the early 1970s for the American market. As mentioned earlier, Tom was able to include much more artistic narrative into these wrap around covers. Here we see the cover for Remembered Death with its sprig of rosemary and characters at dinner, drinking champagne. This was actually Christie’s original title for her novel – which was changed to Sparkling Cyanide for the British market.

In Tom’s archives we see his studio photos exploring lighting and backgrounds for the Rosemary, and we also see an image he’d found in a magazine of a Nazi officer with two women. As we see – Tom removed the officer and reframed the image to achieve the narrative he sought.

Again, his choice for the source image can’t be discounted. The novel was first published in February 1945, prior to the end of World War II. As we’ve seen with other covers, the images that inspired him were often period correct for the novel – this is yet another example of his previously uncredited discipline. In addition, once you know the original image from which the women came, it makes the finished art work much more sinister.

For the American cover of The Body in the Library, Tom’s archives provide us an example of how he would periodically trace images as part of his artistic process. For the background character and library scene Tom had found a magazine image that suited his needs. But how to convert that image to his artwork.

As the archives show, Tom traced the image to give him a usable tool that he could either project or overlay onto his canvas preserving the spacing and perspective he wanted from the original.

An example in the archives where we can see a number of Tom’s techniques blended together – including tracing a source image - is Mrs. McGinty’s Dead. He created the cover for the American printing first – and then modified it for a British cover two years later – adding the large fly, reminding us of his wasp for Death in the Clouds, and moving the body so that only a bit of a leg is showing.

An interesting item in Tom’s archives is a magazine article about the true-life murder of Violet Woolmington. As the article shows, her body was found dead on a parlour floor – just as Mrs. McGinty’s was. Tom blended together this image with another of a room he thought suitable for the setting. We see how he traced that image, and then later added in the body on the floor, and for the British edition, the fly.

As later archival material will show, this example is fairly simple compared to the complex tracings he would do when he would use collaging techniques to build the images he wanted.

In Part 3, not only will we look at that technique, but I'll also share some of the famous faces hidden in his covers!

Input.

Comments are most welcome - either by adding them at the foot of this article or by email at: collectchristie@gmail.com . It would be great to hear what you've enjoyed learning about or seeing in this article. Also, if there are any specific covers you have questions about do let me know. Many were not covered in the presentation due to time constraints.

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