The resulting publicity over her name caused the new novel to become a sales hit. The book was published a few weeks after the disappearance and reappearance of Christie. Christie would have realized that The Big Four was an inferior novel and went to work writing The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for the new publisher. His theory continues with Christie's relationship to her new publisher William Collins, Sons. No other information exists on this novel, but Zemboy suggests it was The Big Four. Unlike the later Partners in Crime (1929), the order of the stories was retained.Īround this time, a novel was offered for publication to The Bodley Head and was rejected. His assistance mainly took the form of revising the beginnings and ends of the stories to make them flow better into a novel – the substance of each story remains the same between the short story version and the novel version. Campbell helped her revise the stories, which had been written for The Sketch, into a more coherent form for book publication. Her brother-in-law, Campbell Christie, suggested that, rather than undergo the strain of composing a completely new novel, Christie should merely compile her most recent series of Poirot stories into a full length book. In 1926 Christie was already deeply affected by the death of her mother earlier in the year and the breakdown of her marriage to Archibald Christie. This is a tale of international intrigue and espionage, therefore opening up the possibility of more spy fiction from Christie.

The structure of the novel is different from other Poirot stories, as it began from twelve short stories (eleven in the US) that had been separately published. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00. It features Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, and Inspector Japp. The Big Four is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on 27 January 1927 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year.

The big four agatha christie