Art of Illustration
Tom Adams - The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Tom Adams - The Mysterious Affair at Styles
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NEW: Collector's edition print, with Tom Adams's signature embossed in the paper.
Image Size: 291mm x 215mm
One of a pair of book cover paintings commissioned by the publishers HarperCollins, hardback slip-cased edition, first published in UK 2016. Publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles marked exactly 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote the book.
"The Mysterious Affair at Styles was written in 1916 during the First World War and published in the UK by The Bodley Head on 21 January 1921. The genesis of the book has been widely documented: the challenge by Agatha’s sister, Madge—‘I bet you can’t write a good detective story’; her work, first as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, then in a dispensary, provided Agatha with a good working knowledge of poisons, which she exploited many times during her long career; the Belgian refugees in Torquay who inspired her creation of the retired Belgian policeman, Hercule Poirot; and Christie’s two-year wait between submitting her manuscript to publishers and finally being offered a six-book contract with John Lane at The Bodley Head.
In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, we are introduced to Poirot, the eccentric detective and his dim but faithful sidekick, Captain Arthur Hastings (shades of Holmes and Watson). Already features that would come to typify future books are evident in Styles: the clever planting of clues, the extraordinarily imaginative plotting, and the final drawing-room scene with the naming of the guilty party. In this first novel Captain Hastings has been wounded, probably during the disastrous five-month Battle of the Somme, and was invited to spend some of his convalescence at Styles, the big country house owned by the mother of his friend, John Cavendish.
It was an amazing achievement for a first-time crime novelist. It seems as though Agatha the writer—a West Country woman from Torquay with an American father and practically no formal education—had sprung fully formed from a respectable middle-class family. Indeed, it was Agatha’s affectionate but analytical amusement at the whims and vagaries (and the strengths and weaknesses) of her own class that was one of the most endearing characteristics in her writing, setting her apart from many of her contemporaries.
Although Agatha created a few continuing characters in her books, some major, some minor, she was not inclined to write direct sequels, enabling readers to dip into her work at any point. The obvious exception was Curtain, written in the early years of the Second World War and intended to be the last appearance of Poirot and Hastings. Agatha was once again working in a dispensary as part of the war effort, which may have encouraged her to revisit the circumstances of her first book from 25 years earlier. In the sequel we come full circle back to Styles, the scene of Poirot and Hastings’ first case. Here they are reunited after years apart, and Poirot is apparently at death’s door, but is determined on one last coup—the prevention of a murder that he is convinced will take place unless he can outwit the potential murderer. Poirot refuses to tell poor Hastings who this is because his ‘speaking countenance’ will give the game away and frustrate the detective’s plans. All is, of course, resolved with Agatha Christie’s trademark brilliance and a twist to rival the very best of her whodunits."
Tom Adams, Cornwall, 25th January 2016
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