Book of the Month - The Thirteen Problems
Tuppence
City of London, United Kingdom
in All stories
This May we will be re-reading the Miss Marple short story collection, The Thirteen Problems. The Thirteen Problems was first published as a collection in the UK in 1932 and later under a different title, The Tuesday Night Murders, in the US in 1933. These were some of the first Miss Marple stories that Agatha Christie wrote, and the first in the collection, The Tuesday Night Club, was Miss Marple's debut in print when it was published in The Royal Magazine in 1927.
The original dustjacket blurb of the collection reads,'Each story is a little masterpiece of detection, clever and ingenious, with just that added twist that only Agatha Christie can give.'
Which of these short stories do you like the best?
Do you think that Miss Marple's character develops throughout the collection?
When comparing these stories to later Miss Marple novels, do you think Christie's style of writing changes or stays the same?
The original dustjacket blurb of the collection reads,'Each story is a little masterpiece of detection, clever and ingenious, with just that added twist that only Agatha Christie can give.'
Which of these short stories do you like the best?
Do you think that Miss Marple's character develops throughout the collection?
When comparing these stories to later Miss Marple novels, do you think Christie's style of writing changes or stays the same?
Comments
I like all of them except for "The Bungalow" and "Ingots of Gold".
I think my favourite is "The Bloodstained Pavement" followed by "A Christmas Tragedy".
Tuppence it was both in both cases, With Raymond, I think he is patronizing andb Conceited, Superior and Egotistical and Ingots of Gold not very interesting, with The Bungalow, I think The Actress is vain and stupid and exasperating and very annoying but at least she is Great in Strange Jest my favourite Miss Marple short story.
Thankyou GKCfan.
1. These were the earliest stories to feature one of Christie’s most famous creations, Miss Marple.
2. Miss Marple’s very first appearance was in short story The Tuesday Night Club which was released in the UK in The Royal Magazine in December 1927.
3. The first six stories from the collection initially appeared in fiction magazine The Royal Magazine between 1927-1928. It wasn’t until 1932 that all 13 stories were published in a collection as The Thirteen Problems.
4. When the collection was first published in the US, it was published under the title The Tuesday Night Murders.
5. The first known image of Miss Marple appeared in The Royal Magazine in December 1927.
6. The original dustjacket blurb read, ‘Each story is a little masterpiece of detection, clever and ingenious, with just that added twist that only Agatha Christie can give.’
7. The collection was dedicated to Leonard and Katherine Woolley. Leonard was a famous British archaeologist who Agatha Christie met in Ur.
8. In 1932 the Daily Mirror reviewed The Thirteen Problems stating, ‘The plots are so good that one marvels at the prodigality which has been displayed, as most of them would have made a full-length thriller.’
9. The story line in the 8th story, The Companion, was reworked and expanded to form the basis of the full length novel, A Murder is Announced, which was released in 1950.
10. Short story, The Blue Geranium, was adapted for the fifth series of Agatha Christie’s Marple. The episode starred Julia McKenzie first aired in June 2010.
11. In The Tuesday Night Club, Raymond’s future spouse is called Joyce, but in later Miss Marple stories she is renamed as Joan.
12. Some elements from short story The Herb of Death were woven into Agatha Christie’s Marple adaptation of The Secret of Chimneys.
13. Tom Adams designed the Fontana cover for The Thirteen Problems. The artist would go on to design covers for Christie’s paperbacks for approximately twenty years.
The deduction that the character Miss Marple gives at the end, while revealed to be true, isn't perfect.
While everything she said was sensible, Raymond's deduction that the doctor's daughter dispensed arsenic instead of opium was just as good, albeit also missing some details. If we add to the deduction the following, it will be shown to be equally acceptable:
Mr. Jones, the head of the household could not have tampered with the lobster, but he could tamper with the bread. But rather than poisoning it, he simply arranged to give everyone food poisoning. The lobster was purchased that night from the store, but there's no reason to believe that the bread wasn't already in the house for days prior. This would make sense given that a respected doctor was certain that Mrs. Jones was suffering from food poisoning, not arsenic poisoning. The reason that Mrs. Jones felt the worst is easy to explain as well. Someone who is on a no carb diet, specifically one who would scrap off some grains of sugar, would barely eat bread rolls. It's entirely possible that Mr.Jones had been trying this trick for multiple nights now, but the infected bread simply had not been used yet. It make sense, if this is the case, for it to not have shown up in the police investigation; after all they were nonevents.
Finally it makes perfect sense that the Inspector would only find out 2 years later for the same reason as Maple's deduction: instead of the housemaid confessing after being heartbroken, it is the doctor's daughter.
This was my own deduction though, so it's possible that I'm missing something through bias - any thoughts?
Yes, technically Raymond's solution fit the available facts– it just wasn't true, and it didn't take into account the blotter clue of "hundreds and thousands." If the guilty party had been brought to trial and brought up Raymond's solution as an alternative explanation of events, and might have been used as reasonable doubt in the absence of alternative evidence, or the guilty party's confession. It's not a plot hole, but as in real life, sometimes an alternative theory can fit the basic facts, although an utterly innocent person may not be able to prove they didn't do it. Also, the "doctor's daughter" solution doesn't take the kitchen maid's agitation into full account.
I suppose I'm expecting the puzzles to actually be theoretically solvable by the reader; but a very big agatha cristie fan told me that that was the case. But certainly Thursday Night Club is not theoretically solvable by the reader; it requires a wild guess that Miss Maple's version of the events - not mine - is true.
I also love Motive v.Oportuny. It's a very good story and a clever solution!
You mean The Tuesday night Club, I wonder if the one with the 2 ladies would actually work in real life?