The Big Four
Collins, 1927.
First edition. Original blue cloth with red border and lettering in rare pictorial dustwrapper. Ownership inscription of "Ellery Queen" and "Barnaby Ross" to the half title in Frederick Dannay's hand and discreet bookplate of Florence and Edward Kaye to the front pastedown. A fine copy with some foxing to the prelims in a very good dustwrapper which has had a small amount of unnecessary restoration replacing some fraying to the border at the head of the spine and various archival mending along the edges and folds.
The Ellery Queen copy of the fourth Poirot novel in its rare dustwrapper. Following the expiry of Christie's disadvantageous contract with Bodley Head, Christie, through the auspices of her new literary agent, Edmund Cork, was enthusiastically signed by Collins, who remained her UK publishers for the rest of her life. Collins' mainstream approach and better understanding of marketing the detective novel helped to elevate Christie's status as a writer from promising newcomer to the 'Queen of Crime'. Her first three books for Collins, all recognisable by their distinctive blue and red cloth bindings, all featured Hercule Poirot. Naturally all three are now very rare in dustwrapper, but in our experience The Big Four is the least often encountered. In the past twenty years we have handled four or five copies of both The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Blue Train in dustwrappers, but only this copy of the The Big Four.
Stock ID: 33636
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