'The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Companion Edition' Restores Agatha Christie's First Novel and Poirot's First Case, the Complete 1920 American Text, Floor Plans and All

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Companion Edition" Restores Agatha Christie's First Novel and Poirot's First Case, the Complete 1920 American Text, Floor Plans and All

Collated against photographic scans of the early American and British printings, nine readings, the dedication, and all four original illustrations restored, with discussion questions for every chapter

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2026, Before Poirot was a legend, he was a refugee nobody in the village could pronounce, and this is where he starts. A new Companion Classics edition, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Companion Edition, presents Agatha Christie's first novel and Hercule Poirot's first case (first published by John Lane, New York, October 1920) in its complete 1920 American text. Emily Inglethorp, mistress of Styles Court in wartime Essex, dies of strychnine in a room bolted from the inside, and the case falls to the Belgian ex-policeman the village has taken in as a charity case. His friend Hastings, convalescing at Styles, tells the story.

The text is taken from Project Gutenberg and collated against photographic scans of the early American and British printings, nine readings restored where the file departs from both witnesses. All 13 chapters are here, 56,380 words, including the 1920 dedication, "To My Mother," which the Gutenberg file omits, and the book's four original illustrations, which the file reduces to placeholders: the plan of the first floor of Styles, the plan of the victim's bedroom, the fragment of the will, and the famous "possessed" envelope, each reproduced at its original position.

The companion material, all of it original to this edition, includes an introduction on the book Christie wrote around her wartime dispensary work, and on the £25 legend that isn't true: the serial rights were sold to The Times Weekly Edition for £50, and Christie's £25 was her half-share of that sale, the whole of what she received under the first contract; it was never a prize or a challenge. Also included: a Who's Who of Styles Court; five explainers, strychnine as the novel presents it, wartime Essex and the Belgian refugees, the country-house mystery being invented, Christie's pharmacy war, and the manuscript's rejections and hard bargain; a short life of Agatha Christie; an honest note on the period text; an appendix on the floor-plan tradition this book founded; and discussion questions for every chapter plus a whole-book set.

Alongside the book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Book Club Kit offers the edition's discussion material as a printable PDF (22 pages, US Letter) for reading groups: a three-meeting plan that splits the thirteen chapters so every meeting ends on a hook, the book's two floor plans reproduced as working evidence, a suspect scorecard, a "Spot the Clue" feature of eight exact quotations with a sealed answer key, and a Styles timetable worksheet, because this case turns on half an hour. The kit is available for $7 through the editor's Payhip store: https://payhip.com/b/3GR5W

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Companion Edition is available now as an eBook ($9.99) through Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/Pwq5y, and in The Classics and Companions Shop on the editor's Linktree. Paperback and hardcover print editions follow on Amazon. The novel's text is public domain in the United States (published 1920). Agatha Christie died in 1976, so the novel remains in copyright in life-plus-seventy countries; this edition is published for US distribution first. The author's and character's names are used only to identify the work. This edition is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the Christie estate or any rights holder, and no estate branding or screen likeness is used anywhere in it.

About the editor

Horace Harriott Jr. is a New York-based author and editor of more than two dozen books, including The Side Hustle Handbook, Master Playbook and The Ultimate Commissary Cookbook. This edition is part of his Companion Classics series of reading-together editions of public-domain classics.

About the book

The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Companion Edition, The First Poirot Novel, The 1920 Text, Agatha Christie (author), Horace Harriott Jr. (editor). Companion Classics, independently published, October 2026. Novel text: the 1920 American text (John Lane, New York), collated against photographic scans of the early American and British printings; 56,380 words; interior proof 296 pages, 6 x 9 in.