Versions of Christie Books

cwhissell

I am looking to do an in-depth study of the language of Christie's novels, beginning with the Poirot novels.  I study language, style, and emotion in plot.

I have two questions:

1. Do newer editions of the novels include new text? Did Christie's novels change with re-publication? Or can I rely on newer versions being substantially the same as original ones?

2. Does anyone know a good (and legitimate) source of the novels online that can be downloaded and studied?

taliavishay-arbel

New versions have sometimes been changed - especially these printed in the U.S. There was a discussion here about "The moving finger" - the american edition didn't include the prologue and epilogue. As for online books - I would be very careful to check which edition was uploaded. 

GKCfan

The U.S. editions have often changed words (Briticisms to Americanizations), and sometimes little details, like mild profanity or even the occasional adjective havve been changed.  Some editions have dropped lines, like Towards Zero– for years, the US edition cut the very last line.

GKCfan

The US edition of Moving Finger cut more than the prologue– about one-third of the text, mostly scenes of village life, was also edited out, and Murder is Easy faced a similar gutting.  This was because it was WWII, and publishers were trying to save on scarce paper.  Also, the killer's motive in Three Act Tragedy is totally different in the US case as opposed to the UK edition.

These are the three major examples.  Of course, many titles have been changed, and And Then There Were None and others have had ethnic slurs removed.

Note that punctuation is radically different sometimes between the US and UK editions (commas vs. dashes, etc.)

About the only place you can legally download the most recent US ebooks (which are now taken directly from the original UK versions, but still contain some changes) is Amazon.com, or perhaps Barnes and Noble or a similar reputable bookselling site.

GKCfan

In any case, an edition of ANY Christie work published in 1980 is likely quite different in some ways from an edition of the same book published in 2010.

cwhissell

Thank you all. This gives me a good grip on the problem.

GKCfan

You're welcome!