Thirteen at table

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lord Edgware Dies is the 13th mystery novel by Agatha Christie . It appeared in the United Kingdom in September 1933 at the Collins Crime Club under the title Lord Edgware Dies and in the United States later that year under the title Thirteen at Dinner by Dodd, Mead and Company . The German first edition was published in 1934 by Goldmann Verlag Leipzig with the translation by Dr. Otto Albrecht van Bebber published. In 2015, Giovanni and Ditte Bandini's work was retransmitted into German and published by Atlantik-Verlag in Hamburg.

Hercule Poirot , Arthur Hastings and Chief Inspector Japp are investigating .

action

The famous detective Hercule Poirot is commissioned by actress Jane Wilkinson (Lady Edgware) to persuade her husband, the 4th Lord Edgware, to agree to divorce her: she is determined to meet the even more prosperous Duke of Merton, a young and rich nobles with political ambitions to get married. When Poirot visits Lord Edgware, the surprised husband declares that he has already informed his wife in writing that he will consent to the divorce. Lady Edgware claims, when Poirot and his friend tell Hastings, that they never received the letter.

That same evening, Lord Edgware is stabbed with a knife in his study. Chief Inspector Japp suspects Jane Wilkinson after Edgware's butler let in a lady who posed as Lady Edgware late that evening. But as Poirot can prove, she was at an evening party at the time.

According to his instinct, Poirot would like to visit the American actress Carlotta Adams, who is known to him and who, among others, is also successfully imitating Jane Wilkinson in her stage program. He suspects that Adams could have slipped into the role and mask of the lady before the murder due to her relationship with an heir of Edgware, in order to incriminate her as the perpetrator. But on his arrival Poirot is told that Adams died of a veronal overdose that night . In order to find out more about Adams, Poirot asks the young sister of the deceased for information, whereupon she sends him her sister's last letter. In this letter, Adams mentions that a person offers them a large sum on a bet. It is also assumed that it is a man because Adams speaks of "he" (English: he), but Poirot suspects that it could also be a "she" (English: s he) because before "He" a piece of the sheet was torn off. Since this is not possible in the German translation, a “J.” (for “Jane”) has been removed.

Some time later, an actor who was also present at dinner at the time of Lord Edgware's murder claims to Hastings that he has something important to tell Poirot about the murder. During a phone call with Poirot, however, he is stabbed to death before he can tell Poirot about it. Finally, Poirot can spectacularly name those involved as the murderer of Lord Edgware, Carlotta Adams' and the actor. The killer is Lady Edgware. Carlotta had slipped into their role for money, but had no idea that she was being abused for a murder plot. That had meant her death sentence. Lady Edgware's motives were greed for power and money in the first case and elimination of witnesses in the following cases. The religious Duke of Merton would never have married her despite divorce during her husband's lifetime. The novel ends with a letter from the murderer to Poirot on death row on the day of her execution: When Christie wrote the book, the UK was still under the death penalty .

The German and American titles refer to Jane Wilkinson's alibi, since thirteen were seated at the dinner party that was invited .

People in thirteen at table

  • Hercule Poirot
  • Captain Arthur Hastings
  • Chief Inspector Japp
  • Jane Wilkinson
  • Lord Edgware
  • Carlotta Adams
  • Bryan Martin (in the German translation Martin Bryan)
  • Ellis
  • Jenny Driver
  • Geraldine Marsh
  • Ronald Marsh
  • Miss Carroll
  • Alton
  • Donald Ross
  • Alice

Reviews

The Times Literary Supplement of September 21, 1933, reviews the book positively and comments on the fact that “Poirot gets on the right track with a random comment made by a stranger on the street. Three such murders, however, are enough to strain the skills of even the most superhuman detective, and we do not grudge luck with luck. "

Isaac Anderson concludes his review in the September 24, 1933 issue of The New York Times Book Review by saying, “This story presents a highly sophisticated detective puzzle and an even more sophisticated solution, all presented with the consummate skill of Agatha Christie . "

Relationships with other works

In chapter 7, Poirot says he has found a clue like this before, but it was four feet long, not four centimeters. This is believed to be an indication of murder on the golf course . In this case Poirot had discovered a lead pole that had been used to disfigure the victim's face. In the novel, however, she is described as two feet in length, which speaks against it.

In chapter 25, Hastings tells Donald Ross that Poirot is on a date on a different occasion, the "strange disappearance of a pair of ambassador's boots." When Poirot returns, he tells Hastings that it was a cocaine smuggling case and that he had spent the last hour in a beauty salon. That sounds identical to the story The Ambassador's Boots from 1929 from the Pandora's Box with Tommy and Tuppence Beresford . Only that Poirot speaks of a red-haired lady, while the girl in the short story was blonde, or, if she disguised herself, black-haired. Hastings often reports Poirot's fondness for red-haired women.

Relationships with the real world

The role of Carlotta Adams is based on the person of the American stage actress Ruth Draper (1884-1956). In her autobiography, Christie writes, “I thought how clever she was and how well her portrayals were; She was wonderfully able to transform herself from a nagging housewife to a peasant girl praying in the cathedral. Thinking about it gave me the idea for the book Lord Edgware Dies . "

Film adaptations

Lord Edgware Dies (1934)

The first film adaptation of the novel dates from 1934. It was an eighty-minute film with Austin Trevor in the role of Poirot. It was his third portrayal of the detective after Alibi and Black Coffee , both from 1931.

Murder a la carte (1985)

Original title Thirteen at Dinner (1985)

In 1985 the novel was adapted for a television film with Peter Ustinov in the role of Hercule Poirot. It is one of six films in which Ustinov plays this role. The production under the American title received the German title Mord à la Carte . Faye Dunaway plays the dual roles of Jane Wilkinson and Carlotta Adams. The story was moved from the 1930s to the 1980s. The role of Inspector Japp is played by David Suchet , who subsequently took on the role of Hercule Poirot in over sixty episodes of the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot .

Agatha Christie's Poirot

In 2000 the book was adapted for a special episode of the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot and aired on February 19, 2000. It belongs to the 7th season and its 2nd episode.

Major expenses

  • 1933, UK first published, Collins Crime Club (London)
  • 1933, first published in the United States, Dodd Mead and Company (New York)
  • 1934, German first edition, translated by Dr. Otto Albrecht van Bebber, Goldmann Verlag (Leipzig)
  • 2015, new translation by Giovanni Bandini, Atlantikverlag (Hamburg)

The novel first appeared as a serialized novel in The American Magazine in six episodes from March (volume CXV, number 3) to August 1933 (volume CXVI, number 2) as 13 for Dinner with illustrations by Weldon Trench.

dedication

The dedication of the book reads:

"To Dr. and Mrs. Campbell Thompson "

Reginald Campbell Thompson (August 21, 1876 - May 23, 1941), married to Barbara, was a distinguished British archaeologist and the second leader of an expedition that employed Christie's husband, Max Mallowan. Mallowan got the offer in 1930, when his then employer Leonard Woolley proved to be very difficult when the newly married Mallowan wanted to receive Agatha during the excavations. But the real opposition came from Leonard's wife, Katharine (see also the dedication in The Tuesday Night Club ).

Thompson's dig was in Nineveh and Max joined the team in September 1931, followed by Agatha a month later. The invitation was only issued after the Mallowans visited the Thompsons for a weekend in the countryside near Oxford . They had gone on a hike together; on the "wettest day, which is only possible over rough terrain", followed by another test to see whether Max and Agatha are picky eaters. That should ensure that the two of them could survive a season in the wilderness of Iraq. After hiking the Dartmoor , they had a healthy appetite and passed the tests. The relationship between the Mallowans and the Thompsons was far more relaxed than with the Woolleys.

Audio book

  • 2005 Thirteen at the table (3 CDs): with the original Miss Marple film melody. Read by Ben Hecker. Director: Sven Stricker. Translated from the English by Tanja Handels. Authorized reading version of the Hörverlag Munich

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club - A checklist of First Editions . Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 14)
  2. John Cooper and BA Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide : Second Edition (Pages 82 and 86) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
  3. American Tribute to Agatha Christie
  4. a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
  5. [1]
  6. ^ The Times Literary Supplement September 21, 1933 (Page 633)
  7. ^ The New York Times Book Review September 24, 1933 (Page 25)
  8. Christie, Agatha. To Autobiography. (Page 437). Collins, 1977. ISBN 0-00-216012-9 .
  9. To Autobiography . (Pages 451-2).
  10. ^ Audiobook (licensed) in the catalog of the German National Library