Agatha Christie wrote the novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1916 while working as a nurse during World War I. First, it was published in 1920 by John Lane in the United States. Then, in 1921, it was published in the United Kingdom by The Bodley Head. The book is a detective novel, which was Christie’s specialty. She wrote 66 detective novels and many short stories over her career.
Plot
Lieutenant Arthur Hastings returns to England after an injury during the war, visiting his friend John Cavendish for a month during his convalescence. John lives with his wife Mary in the home of his stepmother Emily, and it is in Styles. Emily is the widow and heiress of her first husband, Cavendish. At home, she lives with her new husband Alfred Inglethorp, a man younger than her. Besides, in the house live Lawrance younger brother of John; Evelyn Howard, Alfred’s cousin, and Emily’s friend; Cynthia Murdoch a young orphan of a friend of Emily.
Miss Howard left the house, after discussing with Emily by telling her that her husband would cheat on her and that he was a gold digger. A few days after the departure of Miss Howard, Emily Inglethorp dies after suffering strong convulsions. The strange death generated doubts in Hastings and in the family, doctor called Wilkins. As a result, Wilkins decides to perform an autopsy, since he suspects that the death of Mrs. Inglethorp is due to poisoning.
Moreover, Hastings proposes to John Cavendish to call his friend the private detective Hercules Poirot. Poirot accepts the invitation to intervene in the case with the help of his assistants. Initially, there are several suspects, but after the investigations carried out, they found the real culprits of the crime.
Christie dedicated the novel to her mother, who had encouraged her to write a story during a time when she was sick.
Adaptations
The novel had different adaptations to television, radio, and stage
Licensing
Agatha Christie. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Publisher: John Lane Company (New York), 1920. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1920, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929. Text from Wikisource: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Affair_at_Styles
This edition is provided by Ebooks-net in 2024 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. The full text of the license is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
To cite this work
Christie, Agatha. The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Ebooks-net, 2024. CC BY-SA 4.0. https://beta.ebooks-net.com/en/ebook/the-mysterious-affair-at-styles/
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