This updated Agatha Christie compendium offers synopses of all Christie's novels, plays and short stories, without revealing whodunit. It also features: a portrait of Agatha Christie by Julian Symons; Christie's own comments on her work; articles on themes in her work such as a guide to Agatha's toxic agents, gossip and intuition as detective tools and the subtleties of the all-encompassing dress codes that governed her characters; articles on films, plus an updated filmography and new-video listing; a behind-the-scenes look at "Agatha" the movie; a mystery map showing locations of stories; a Christie crossword; and coverage of her romantic writing under the pen name Mary Westmacott.--From publisher description.

What fictional detective survived an attempted murder by his creator? (Sherlock Holmes) Who was the single mother, living on state benefits, whose wizardly series of novels has made her the richest writer in England? (J. K. Rowling) Which American poet composed and read a poem at John F. Kennedy's inauguration? (Robert Frost)

Excerpt from the Introduction: For a long time we declined the invitation of Messrs. Biblo and Tannen to reissue The Detective Short Story: A Bibliography. The book originally appeared in 1942, and since then nothing has been changed in the book, nothing subtracted, nothing added. Of what earthly use, we asked Messrs. B and T, is a bibliography that has been out of date for 27 years? Mssrs. B and T insisted that the book was a milestone in its field, that copies of the original (and only) edition were virtually unobtainable, that many collectors, readers, libraries, booksellers, and even some critics, wanted the book however long it has been out of date – in short, that this unique work should be rescued from biblivion. So we agreed to its reissue in this handsome offset edition. From the moment the original edition went to press in 1942 we foresaw the possible desirability of future revised and updated editions. So we began to collect notes on newly published volumes of detective-crime-mystery short stories, on corrections of errors (oh, yes, there were some) in the 1942 edition, and on newly discovered titles published before 1942. Ellery Queen