1920: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Publisher: The Bodley Head, 1921 (UK); John Lane, 1920 (US)

Series: Hercule Poirot

Category: Novel

Cross refs:

Warning, spoilers!

The Mysterious Affair at Styles was Agatha Christie’s first published work of detective fiction. It may have been the debut of ‘Martin West’ or ‘Mostyn Grey’, had Christie had her way, but her publisher discouraged such pseudonyms, and it was her own name that appeared on the cover when the book was published in September 1920.[1]

Awash with red herrings and a cornucopia of clues – a toppled table, a crushed coffee cup, a stain on the carpet, an unseasonable fire, paper ashes in the grate, a changed will, a door locked on the inside, a false beard, a letter with an altered date, a signature in a pharmacists register – this book acts as a form of ‘preface’ to the stories that were to follow, introducing the reader to those elements that would become quintessentially Christie. Themes that were to emerge time and time again – strained family ties, espionage, romance, the making and remaking of wills, the science of poisons – also make their first appearances here. While Christie herself regarded the book as having ‘too many false clues – so many things to unravel’, to me it feels like the perfect display of all her mind had ready to offer.[2]

‘Too many false clues – so many things to unravel.’

Begun in 1916, while Christie was working as a dispenser at Torquay’s Red Cross Hospital, and completed during a fortnight holiday to Dartmoor, The Mysterious Affair at Styles wasn’t immediately accepted by publishers. Indeed, Christie made several unsuccessful approaches, with her manuscript being twice returned, first by Hodder and Stoughton and then by Mathuen’s, before it found its home with John Lane.

In her autobiography, Christie recounts her first meeting with John Lane (1854–1925), ‘a small man with a white beard, looking somehow rather Elizabethan’ (fig. 1).[3] This shrewd-eyed publisher offered Christie a contract that tied her to him for her next five books, a clause that she hardly noticed at the time. After a tweak to the last chapter, following Lane’s advice to move the final courtroom scene into the domestic sphere, and some grappling over the spelling of the word ‘cocoa’ with the editor, Miss Howse – whom Christie described as ‘the dragon presiding over all spelling in The Bodley Head’ – the first edition of the book was published.[4] 

Released first to the US market, the UK edition followed in January 1921, published under The Bodley Head imprint (a publishing house founded by John Lane and Charles Elkin Mathews (1851–1921)). The fact of the book publishing in the US first was due to the serial rights being sold in the UK to The Times Weekly Edition. The paper published it episodically between February and June 1920, for which Christie received half the rights fee – some £25 – the remainder being due to her publisher.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First we must acknowledge, as is well documented, that Styles owes some dues, at least, to Christie’s older sister, Madge (also known as ‘Punkie’) (1879–1950; fig. 2), who had, a number of years previously, challenged Christie to write a detective novel.[5] Madge’s words, ‘I bet you can’t’, clearly remained with Christie, and it was several years later, while she was working at the Red Cross dispensary during the First World War, that the idea for her story truly began to form.[6] With a work pattern that vacillated between busy and slack periods, the quiet moments at the dispensary allowed Christie time to consider her narrative. There would be a murder, and, as she later wrote: ‘Since I was surrounded by poisons, perhaps it was natural that death by poisoning should be the method I selected.’[7]

Indeed, her knowledge of poisons, and, in particular for this case, of strychnine and its reaction to potassium bromide, was essential to the plot. This bitter-tasting alkaloid had been used in Europe as a rat (and dog and cat) poison since the late 1800s.[8] And there had been a number of high-profile cases of strychnine poisoning in the press.[9] However, perhaps surprisingly, this neurotoxin was also used in small doses as a stimulant. Indeed, Mrs Inglethorp, the victim of this story, was taking a daily tonic containing strychnine as a ‘pick-me-up’ (and such a tonic is also mentioned by H. G. Wells in The Invisible Man: ‘Strychnine is a grand tonic … to take the flabbiness out of a man’).[10] By contrast, a lethal dose would result in extreme muscle spasms, creating the kind of convulsions experienced by Mrs Inglethorp, with death occurring due to respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, brain damage, or multi-organ failure.[11] This gory end aside, Christie was quietly pleased that her intimate knowledge of the poison had been recognised and appreciated, with the review in The Pharmaceutical Journal, praising ‘this detective story for dealing with poisons in a knowledgeable way, and not with the nonsense about untraceable substances that so often happens. Miss Agatha Christie knows her job’.[12]

‘Miss Agatha Christie knows her job.’

As the plot for the novel began to take shape, so too did the characters. The murderer she saw as being sinister in appearance with a black beard. This character was gradually formed from two figures Christie encountered during that period: an acquaintance who had come to live near the family, who had a black beard and an older, very wealthy wife, but who was so benign in personality that Christie at once saw that he would never do for a murderer; and a more menacing, bearded figure who she observed one day while on the tram. On this same tram journey, she also saw a ‘hearty woman, talking too loudly about spring bulbs’, thus Miss Howard, the ‘Lady gardener’ figure, was also born.[13]

Styles offers an early demonstration of Christie’s ability to sum up character ‘types’ in but a few words. Miss Howard, for example, becomes flesh and blood in just a short extract:

A lady in a stout tweed skirt who was bending over a flower bed straightened herself at our approach … Miss Howard shook hands with a hearty, almost painful grip … she was a pleasant-looking woman of about 40 with a deep voice … and had a large, sensible square body, with feet to match, these last encased in good thick boots.

That her ‘conversation … was couched in the telegraphic style’ – ‘She’ll press you in. Better be careful. Don’t say it. Never does. Wish you hadn’t later.’ – offers a perfect illustration of Christie’s ability to observe and capture a character’s way of being, while also hinting at her social observational skills and dark humour. 

Other ‘types’ emerge in Styles that were to recur in later stories and were to become Christie’s stock and trade. The matriarchal figure, dedicated to ‘good works’ but with little love lost between herself and her family; the old-fashioned, stalwart servant; the VAD nurse and dispenser, based on Christie’s own experiences during the war; the awkward Englishman, unable to express his emotions but loyal to the last; the auburn-haired enigmatic beauty, who would always distract the eye of Captain Hastings. 

This mention of Captain Hastings brings us to perhaps the most crucial point about Styles. This was not only Christie’s first novel, but it was also our first introduction to the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Phrases such as ‘order and method’, and ‘a little idea’, make their first appearance in this tale, as do character traits such as the straightening of ornaments (which becomes integral to the plot) and the building of card houses. In her autobiography, Christie wrote of her thought process in creating the now-famous detective. She wanted to invent ‘someone who hadn’t been used before. Who could I have? A schoolboy? Rather difficult. A scientist? What did I know of scientists? Then I remembered the Belgian refugees.’[14] There had been quite a number of Belgian refugees living in Christie’s parish of Tor. She considered:

Why not make my detective a Belgian? … There were all types of refugees. How about a refugee police officer? A retired police officer. Not too young a one … He should have been an inspector, so he would have a certain knowledge of crime … And he should be  very brainy.[15]

‘Why not make my detective a Belgian?’

And to balance this Belgian dandy, with his ‘little grey cells’, Christie created a Watson-type character in Captain Hastings. We are immediately endeared to our naïve narrator, with his absurd theories and misguided ideas. When set to a task by Poirot, Hastings can’t resist overplaying his role declaring: ‘I’ve always been rather good at what I believe is called “creating an atmosphere”.’ His weakness when it comes to pretty young women is apparent from the start, but he is always on the backfoot; it is the women who are in control, and indeed, his attempt at gallantry with his rather rash proposal to Cynthia is met with a laugh. When he calls Poirot out on not sharing his theories, the latter placates him: ‘You have a nature so honest and a countenance so transparent that to conceal your feelings is impossible.’

There is much more to say on the subject of Styles, but I fear I must draw to a close. However, I cannot finish without mentioning the introduction of Detective Inspector Japp, who would also make a series of reappearances in the Poirot novels. Perhaps I should end on a Japp-like phrase in declaring ‘it is all a mare’s nest!’, and move on to Christie’s next project.  

[1] Agatha Christie, An Autobiography (1977; London, 2011), p. 283.

[2] Christie 2011, p. 257.

[3] Christie 2011, p. 276.

[4] Christie 2011, p. 283.

[5] ‘The First Poirot’, Ah Sweet Mystery, 10 January 2017, https://ahsweetmystery.com/2017/01/10/the-first-poirot/ [accessed 5 March 2025].

[6] Christie 2011, p. 211.

[7] Christie 2011, p. 254.

[8] Neil Bradbury, ‘A Brief History of Strychnine, the Poison of Choice for Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Scores More – But Why?’, Crime Reads, 10 February 2022, https://crimereads.com/strychnine-poison-christie-conan-doyle/ [accessed 5 March 2025].

[9] See for example Rose Staveley-Wadham, ‘William Palmer the Rugeley Poisoner – A Very Victorian Morality Tale’, The British Newspaper Archive, 25 March 2020, https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2020/03/25/william-palmer-the-rugeley-poisoner/ [accessed 3 March 2025].  

[10] Bradbury 2022, n.p.

[11] ‘Strychnine: Chemical Fact Sheet’, US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, 6 September 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/chemical-emergencies/chemical-fact-sheets/strychnine.html [accessed 5 March 2025].

[12] Cited in Christie 2011, p. 283. 

[13] Christie 2011, p. 255.

[14] Christie 2011, p. 256.

[15] Christie 2011, pp. 256–7.