Murder in Mesopotamia
Encyclopedia
Murder in Mesopotamia is a work of detective fiction
by Agatha Christie
and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club
on July 6, 1936
and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence
(7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot
. The novel is set at an archaeological excavation in Iraq
, and descriptive details derive from the author's visit to the Royal Cemetery at Ur
with her husband, Sir Max Mallowan
, and other British archaeologists.
, then a British protectorate. His wife was previously married to a Frederick Bosner, a young man who worked for the U.S. State Department but was actually a spy for Germany during the Great War. He was caught, tried and sentenced to death. He managed to escape while he was being transported, but it was to no apparent avail as he ended up on a train that crashed, and a body bearing his identification was found in the wreckage.
Amy Leatheran is a nurse traveling in Iraq when she meets Dr. Leidner, who asks her to join the dig to look after his wife. Mrs. Leidner has been frightened by weird goings on, such as a ghostly face appearing just outside her window
and has received threatening letters. Mrs. Leidner confides to Nurse Leatheran that she had received similar threatening letters several years before that were supposedly from her dead first husband. They arrived every time she would go out with a new man, then stopped when she broke off the relationship. One of the letters was signed with her late husband's name, but she had no letters from him - they had been married only a short time - so she could not ascertain whether the letters were genuine. No letters arrived when she met and then married Dr. Leidner, so Mrs. Leidner had assumed they were written by some crackpot who had either died or given up keeping an eye on her.
Then Mrs. Leidner is found dead by her husband in her room, struck fatally on the head with a large blunt object. The Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, is also traveling in Iraq and his old friend, Dr. Reilly - a physician acquainted with the dig - asks him to solve the crime.
Poirot questions everyone informally and employs Nurse Leatheran as his assistant to investigate functional and logistical questions. There is much speculation that one of the members of the dig may, in fact, be William Bosner, the younger brother of the late Frederick Bosner. Then, Dr. Leidner's longtime female colleague, Miss Johnson, is killed - poisoned by hydrochloric acid substituted in the glass of water on her nightstand. She manages to choke out the words, "The window! The window!" before she dies, thereby providing Poirot the vital piece of information he needs to solve the case.
It transpires that Mrs. Leidner and Miss Johnson were killed by Dr. Leidner - who is, in fact, Frederick Bosner. He managed to survive the train crash, too; but a young Swedish archaeologist named Erich Leidner had not and was disfigured beyond all recognition. Bosner traded identities with the dead man. Fifteen years later, he re-married his wife, who did not recognize him.
Dr. Leidner was the one sending the letters to discourage Louise from her other relationships. When he finally managed to marry her again he stopped writing them, but it became apparent that Mrs Leidner was falling in love with Richard Carey, Dr. Leidners friend who is also present at the dig. Dr. Leidner could not stand to lose her again and hurt by the betrayal he murdered his wife.
At first glance it seemed impossible that Dr. Leidner could have murdered his wife because he was on the roof during the period that the murder was committed. It seemed that whoever killed Louise Leidner must have come through her door since it was clear that one could not squeeze through the barred window. However, there were witnesses in the courtyard to swear that no one entered her room prior to the discovery of her murder. In addition, these witnesses also stated that Dr. Leidner never came down from the roof, until he discovered his wife's body.
However, Dr. Leidner committed the crime without ever leaving the roof. Louise Leidner was in bed asleep when she was awakened by a familiar noise. Several nights earlier, she had been frightened by the sight of a figure at the window. But now she realized that what she had been seeing was just a mask
. Determined to find out who has been tormenting her, she opened the window and stuck her head out, looking up only to be bludgeoned with a heavy stone quern
dropped by her husband, who was on the roof. Then, using a rope threaded through a hole in the quern, Dr. Leidner retrieved the murder weapon. Mrs. Leidner cried out briefly before being struck down; it was this that was heard by Miss Johnson only because the window facing the exterior of the window was open. However, it was still essential that all physical evidence be removed that could possibly suggest the significance that window played in the crime. Therefore, it was necessary for Dr. Leidner to alter the scene of the crime before the police were called in to investigate. When he climbed down from the roof, he moved his wife's body to another part of the room away from the window, along with a blood-stained rug. Lastly he shut the window before bursting out into the courtyard announcing his wife's death to the rest of the expedition camp.
When planning the murder, Dr. Leidner figured that suspicion might be directed toward him, because one might assume that he would have enough time to kill his wife when he entered her room from the courtyard only to re-emerge a few moments later with the news of his wife's murder. This is why Dr. Leidner insisted that Nurse Leatheran accompany him to the expedition. The nurse would be his perfect alibi, stating that upon entering the room of his wife, Dr. Leidner could not have possibly committed the murder. Leidner hoped that the testimony of Nurse Leatheran would assure suspicion would be directed elsewhere.
While standing on the roof and looking out over the countryside, Miss Johnson realises how Dr. Leidner could have killed his wife, tying in with her previous discovery of the threatening letters in his office. Retaining her loyalty for the man she loves, she doesn't tell anybody, and fobs off Nurse Leatheran when she enquires about her obvious distress. However, Leidner realises that she will eventually crack, so that night he plants the blood-stained quern with which he killed his wife under her bed while she sleeps, and replaces a glass of water on her bedside table with hydrochloric acid
, so once she dies everyone will think she murdered Louise so she could seduce her husband and, overcome by remorse, killed herself. But in her dying moments Miss Johnson tries imparting her discovery of Leidner's guilt when she croaks out 'the window', a seemingly obscure comment which puts Poirot on the right track.
Meanwhile, the man Louise saw looking through the antika room window turns out to be Ali Yusuf, who had been helping the expedition epigraphist Father Lavigny - actually Raoul Menier, a French thief masquerading as a monk - steal precious artifacts from the dig and replace them with near perfect copies.
In The New York Times Book Review
for September 20, 1936, Kay Irvin said "Agatha Christie is a past master, as every one knows, in presenting us with a full assortment of clues which we cannot read. And there are mysteries within mysteries among this quiet yet oddly troubled group of scientific workers, one of whom must have been the murderer; it is part of the author's skill to make us feel that every human character is a little mysterious, and that when crimes are committed among a group of apparently well-bred and cultivated people every one of them may be suspect. Agatha Christie's expertness in building up her detective stories, as such, to astonishing (though sometimes very far-fetched) conclusions has more or less over-shadowed her amazing versatility, not only in background and incident, but in character-drawing and actual style. The story here is told by a trained nurse – as has been done by other eminent mystery novelists. Nurse Leatheran holds her own with them all. This latest Christie opus is a smooth, highly original and completely absorbing tale".
In The Observer
s issue of July 12, 1936, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers
) said, "Agatha Christie has a humorous, well-observed story amongst the ruins of Tell Yarimjah, and her latest method of murder, which got me guessing fruitlessly, has, as usual, more simplicity of a miracle than the complication of a conjuring trick. Poirot as a man is quite as delightful as ever, and Poirot as a detective not only perplexes the pleasant and not too intelligent hospital nurse, whose duty it is to tell the story, but, again as usual, the intelligent reader as well. The trouble is that he also perplexes the unprejudiced in a way most unusual to him: I for one cannot understand why he has allowed Agatha Christie to make him party to a crime whose integrity stands or falls by a central situation which, though most ingenious, is next door to impossible. The point at issue, which it would be grossly unfair to specify, between Mrs. Christie and the reader is one which would provide a really interesting silly season
correspondence." He concluded that, "Usually Poirot is to be toasted in anything handy, and no heel-taps; this time I drink to him a rather sorrowful glass of Lachryma Christie."
The Daily Mirror of July 9, 1936 said, "Don't start reading this if you've got something to do or want a book just for a quarter of an hour or so. Because you simply won't put it down til you've reached the last sentence." The review finished by saying, "Agatha Christie's grand. In this tale of peculiarly-placed murder she's given us another rattling good tale."
Robert Barnard
: "Archeological dig provides unusual setting, expertly and entertainingly presented. Wife-victim surely based on Katherine Woolley, and very well done. Narrated by nurse, a temporary Hastings-substitute – soon she found she could do without such a figure altogether. Marred by an ending which goes beyond the improbable to the inconceivable."
adapted the novel for TV in 2001, as part of the Agatha Christie's Poirot
series with David Suchet
. It has been shown on the Biography Channel in the U.S. The character of Captain Hastings was added to the story, reducing Amy Leatheran's contribution drastically. Leatheran is demoted from the protagonist to a supporting character and another suspect.
as a graphic novel
adaptation on July 1, 2008, adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by "Chandre" (ISBN 0-00-727530-7). This was translated from the edition first published in France by Emmanuel Proust éditions in 2005 under the title of Meurtre en Mésopotamie.
The book was first serialised in the US in The Saturday Evening Post
in six instalments from November 9 (Volume 208, Number 19) to December 14, 1935 (Volume 208, Number 24) with illustrations by F. R. Gruger.
In the UK, the novel was serialised as an abridged version in the weekly Women's Pictorial magazine in eight instalments from February 8 (Volume 31, Number 787) to March 28, 1936 (Volume 31, Number 794) under the title No Other Love. There were no chapter divisions and all of the instalments carried illustrations by Clive Uptton
. Several character names were different from the eventual published novel: Amy Leatheran became Amy Seymour while Mr. and Mrs. Leidner were surnamed Trevor.
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club
Collins Crime Club
The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...
on July 6, 1936
1936 in literature
The year 1936 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Life magazine is first published.* The Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature is established in the UK.-New books:...
and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990. Its history properly began in 1870, with the retirement of its founder, Moses Woodruff Dodd. Control passed to his son Frank...
later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence
British sixpence coin
The sixpence, known colloquially as the tanner, or half-shilling, was a British pre-decimal coin, worth six pence, or 1/40th of a pound sterling....
(7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.Poirot has been portrayed on...
. The novel is set at an archaeological excavation in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, and descriptive details derive from the author's visit to the Royal Cemetery at Ur
Ur
Ur was an important city-state in ancient Sumer located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate...
with her husband, Sir Max Mallowan
Max Mallowan
Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, CBE was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history, and the second husband of Dame Agatha Christie.-Life and work:...
, and other British archaeologists.
Plot summary
Dr. Leidner is a Swedish-American archaeologist on a dig in IraqIraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, then a British protectorate. His wife was previously married to a Frederick Bosner, a young man who worked for the U.S. State Department but was actually a spy for Germany during the Great War. He was caught, tried and sentenced to death. He managed to escape while he was being transported, but it was to no apparent avail as he ended up on a train that crashed, and a body bearing his identification was found in the wreckage.
Amy Leatheran is a nurse traveling in Iraq when she meets Dr. Leidner, who asks her to join the dig to look after his wife. Mrs. Leidner has been frightened by weird goings on, such as a ghostly face appearing just outside her window
Window
A window is a transparent or translucent opening in a wall or door that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material like float glass. Windows are held in place by frames, which...
and has received threatening letters. Mrs. Leidner confides to Nurse Leatheran that she had received similar threatening letters several years before that were supposedly from her dead first husband. They arrived every time she would go out with a new man, then stopped when she broke off the relationship. One of the letters was signed with her late husband's name, but she had no letters from him - they had been married only a short time - so she could not ascertain whether the letters were genuine. No letters arrived when she met and then married Dr. Leidner, so Mrs. Leidner had assumed they were written by some crackpot who had either died or given up keeping an eye on her.
Then Mrs. Leidner is found dead by her husband in her room, struck fatally on the head with a large blunt object. The Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, is also traveling in Iraq and his old friend, Dr. Reilly - a physician acquainted with the dig - asks him to solve the crime.
Poirot questions everyone informally and employs Nurse Leatheran as his assistant to investigate functional and logistical questions. There is much speculation that one of the members of the dig may, in fact, be William Bosner, the younger brother of the late Frederick Bosner. Then, Dr. Leidner's longtime female colleague, Miss Johnson, is killed - poisoned by hydrochloric acid substituted in the glass of water on her nightstand. She manages to choke out the words, "The window! The window!" before she dies, thereby providing Poirot the vital piece of information he needs to solve the case.
It transpires that Mrs. Leidner and Miss Johnson were killed by Dr. Leidner - who is, in fact, Frederick Bosner. He managed to survive the train crash, too; but a young Swedish archaeologist named Erich Leidner had not and was disfigured beyond all recognition. Bosner traded identities with the dead man. Fifteen years later, he re-married his wife, who did not recognize him.
Dr. Leidner was the one sending the letters to discourage Louise from her other relationships. When he finally managed to marry her again he stopped writing them, but it became apparent that Mrs Leidner was falling in love with Richard Carey, Dr. Leidners friend who is also present at the dig. Dr. Leidner could not stand to lose her again and hurt by the betrayal he murdered his wife.
At first glance it seemed impossible that Dr. Leidner could have murdered his wife because he was on the roof during the period that the murder was committed. It seemed that whoever killed Louise Leidner must have come through her door since it was clear that one could not squeeze through the barred window. However, there were witnesses in the courtyard to swear that no one entered her room prior to the discovery of her murder. In addition, these witnesses also stated that Dr. Leidner never came down from the roof, until he discovered his wife's body.
However, Dr. Leidner committed the crime without ever leaving the roof. Louise Leidner was in bed asleep when she was awakened by a familiar noise. Several nights earlier, she had been frightened by the sight of a figure at the window. But now she realized that what she had been seeing was just a mask
Mask
A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes...
. Determined to find out who has been tormenting her, she opened the window and stuck her head out, looking up only to be bludgeoned with a heavy stone quern
Quern-stone
Quern-stones are stone tools for hand grinding a wide variety of materials. They were used in pairs. The lower, stationary, stone is called a quern, whilst the upper, mobile, stone is called a handstone...
dropped by her husband, who was on the roof. Then, using a rope threaded through a hole in the quern, Dr. Leidner retrieved the murder weapon. Mrs. Leidner cried out briefly before being struck down; it was this that was heard by Miss Johnson only because the window facing the exterior of the window was open. However, it was still essential that all physical evidence be removed that could possibly suggest the significance that window played in the crime. Therefore, it was necessary for Dr. Leidner to alter the scene of the crime before the police were called in to investigate. When he climbed down from the roof, he moved his wife's body to another part of the room away from the window, along with a blood-stained rug. Lastly he shut the window before bursting out into the courtyard announcing his wife's death to the rest of the expedition camp.
When planning the murder, Dr. Leidner figured that suspicion might be directed toward him, because one might assume that he would have enough time to kill his wife when he entered her room from the courtyard only to re-emerge a few moments later with the news of his wife's murder. This is why Dr. Leidner insisted that Nurse Leatheran accompany him to the expedition. The nurse would be his perfect alibi, stating that upon entering the room of his wife, Dr. Leidner could not have possibly committed the murder. Leidner hoped that the testimony of Nurse Leatheran would assure suspicion would be directed elsewhere.
While standing on the roof and looking out over the countryside, Miss Johnson realises how Dr. Leidner could have killed his wife, tying in with her previous discovery of the threatening letters in his office. Retaining her loyalty for the man she loves, she doesn't tell anybody, and fobs off Nurse Leatheran when she enquires about her obvious distress. However, Leidner realises that she will eventually crack, so that night he plants the blood-stained quern with which he killed his wife under her bed while she sleeps, and replaces a glass of water on her bedside table with hydrochloric acid
Hydrochloric acid
Hydrochloric acid is a solution of hydrogen chloride in water, that is a highly corrosive, strong mineral acid with many industrial uses. It is found naturally in gastric acid....
, so once she dies everyone will think she murdered Louise so she could seduce her husband and, overcome by remorse, killed herself. But in her dying moments Miss Johnson tries imparting her discovery of Leidner's guilt when she croaks out 'the window', a seemingly obscure comment which puts Poirot on the right track.
Meanwhile, the man Louise saw looking through the antika room window turns out to be Ali Yusuf, who had been helping the expedition epigraphist Father Lavigny - actually Raoul Menier, a French thief masquerading as a monk - steal precious artifacts from the dig and replace them with near perfect copies.
Literary significance and reception
The Times Literary Supplement of July 18, 1936 summarised in its review by Harry Pirie-Gordon the set-up of the plot and concluded, "The plot is ingenious and the first murder very cleverly contrived but some will doubt whether Mrs Leidner, as described, could have been so forgetful and unobservant as to render the principal preliminary conditions of the story possible."In The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
for September 20, 1936, Kay Irvin said "Agatha Christie is a past master, as every one knows, in presenting us with a full assortment of clues which we cannot read. And there are mysteries within mysteries among this quiet yet oddly troubled group of scientific workers, one of whom must have been the murderer; it is part of the author's skill to make us feel that every human character is a little mysterious, and that when crimes are committed among a group of apparently well-bred and cultivated people every one of them may be suspect. Agatha Christie's expertness in building up her detective stories, as such, to astonishing (though sometimes very far-fetched) conclusions has more or less over-shadowed her amazing versatility, not only in background and incident, but in character-drawing and actual style. The story here is told by a trained nurse – as has been done by other eminent mystery novelists. Nurse Leatheran holds her own with them all. This latest Christie opus is a smooth, highly original and completely absorbing tale".
In The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
s issue of July 12, 1936, "Torquemada" (Edward Powys Mathers
Edward Powys Mathers
Edward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, and also a pioneer of compiling advanced cryptic crosswords....
) said, "Agatha Christie has a humorous, well-observed story amongst the ruins of Tell Yarimjah, and her latest method of murder, which got me guessing fruitlessly, has, as usual, more simplicity of a miracle than the complication of a conjuring trick. Poirot as a man is quite as delightful as ever, and Poirot as a detective not only perplexes the pleasant and not too intelligent hospital nurse, whose duty it is to tell the story, but, again as usual, the intelligent reader as well. The trouble is that he also perplexes the unprejudiced in a way most unusual to him: I for one cannot understand why he has allowed Agatha Christie to make him party to a crime whose integrity stands or falls by a central situation which, though most ingenious, is next door to impossible. The point at issue, which it would be grossly unfair to specify, between Mrs. Christie and the reader is one which would provide a really interesting silly season
Silly season
The silly season is the period lasting for a few summer months typified by the emergence of frivolous news stories in the media. This term was known by the end of the 19th century and listed in the second edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and remains in use at the start of the 21st...
correspondence." He concluded that, "Usually Poirot is to be toasted in anything handy, and no heel-taps; this time I drink to him a rather sorrowful glass of Lachryma Christie."
The Daily Mirror of July 9, 1936 said, "Don't start reading this if you've got something to do or want a book just for a quarter of an hour or so. Because you simply won't put it down til you've reached the last sentence." The review finished by saying, "Agatha Christie's grand. In this tale of peculiarly-placed murder she's given us another rattling good tale."
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard is an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.- Life and work :Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Colchester Royal Grammar School and at Balliol College in Oxford....
: "Archeological dig provides unusual setting, expertly and entertainingly presented. Wife-victim surely based on Katherine Woolley, and very well done. Narrated by nurse, a temporary Hastings-substitute – soon she found she could do without such a figure altogether. Marred by an ending which goes beyond the improbable to the inconceivable."
Agatha Christie's Poirot
ITVITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
adapted the novel for TV in 2001, as part of the Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...
series with David Suchet
David Suchet
David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...
. It has been shown on the Biography Channel in the U.S. The character of Captain Hastings was added to the story, reducing Amy Leatheran's contribution drastically. Leatheran is demoted from the protagonist to a supporting character and another suspect.
Graphic novel adaptation
Murder in Mesopotamia was released by HarperCollinsHarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
as a graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
adaptation on July 1, 2008, adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by "Chandre" (ISBN 0-00-727530-7). This was translated from the edition first published in France by Emmanuel Proust éditions in 2005 under the title of Meurtre en Mésopotamie.
Publication history
- 1936, Collins Crime Club (London), July 6, 1936, Hardcover, 288 pp
- 1936, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 298 pp
- 1944, Dell Books (New York), Paperback, (Dell number 145 [mapbackMapbackMapback is a term used by paperback collectors to refer to the earliest paperback books published by Dell Books, beginning in 1943. The books are known as mapbacks because the back cover of the book contains a map that illustrates the location of the action. Dell books were numbered in series...
]), 223 pp - 1952, Pan BooksPan BooksPan Books is an imprint which first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers owned by German publishers, Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group....
, Paperback, (Pan number 200) - 1955, Penguin BooksPenguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, Paperback, (Penguin number 1099), 219 pp - 1962, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
), Paperback, 190 pp - 1969, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 367 pp, ISBN 0-85-456667-8
- 2007, Poirot Facsimile Edition (Facsimile of 1936 UK First Edition), HarperCollins, February 5, 2007, Hardcover, ISBN 0-00-723444-9
The book was first serialised in the US in The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
in six instalments from November 9 (Volume 208, Number 19) to December 14, 1935 (Volume 208, Number 24) with illustrations by F. R. Gruger.
In the UK, the novel was serialised as an abridged version in the weekly Women's Pictorial magazine in eight instalments from February 8 (Volume 31, Number 787) to March 28, 1936 (Volume 31, Number 794) under the title No Other Love. There were no chapter divisions and all of the instalments carried illustrations by Clive Uptton
Clive Uptton
Clive Uptton was a widely regarded British illustrator and painter of landscapes and portraits.-Life:Born in Islington, London, the son of Clive Upton, who worked for Swain's, the engravers, as a touch-up artist and later for the Daily Mail newspaper.Clive Upton was educated at Brentwood Grammar...
. Several character names were different from the eventual published novel: Amy Leatheran became Amy Seymour while Mr. and Mrs. Leidner were surnamed Trevor.
International titles
- Dutch: Moord in Mesopotamië (Murder in Mesopotamia)
- French: Meurtre en Mésopotamie (Murder in Mesopotamia)
- Hungarian: Ne jöjj vissza... (Don't Come Back...), Gyilkosság Mezopotámiában (Murder in Mesopotamia)
- Italian: Non c'è più scampo (There's No Way to Escape Any More)
- Russian: Убийство в Месопотамии (=Ubiystvo v Mesopotamii, Murder in Mesopotamia)
- Slovak: Vražda je zvyk (Murder is a habit)
- Spanish: Asesinato en Mesopotamia (Murder in Mesopotamia)
- Romanian: Crima din Mesopotamia (The Crime in Mesopotamia)
External links
- Murder in Mesopotamia at the official Agatha Christie website