Peril at End House

Peril at End House is a mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the US by the Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1932 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March of the same year. The US edition retailed at $2.00

Isaac Anderson began his review in The New York Times Book Review on 6 March 1932, by writing "With Agatha Christie as the author and Hercule Poirot as the central figure, one is always assured of an entertaining story with a real mystery to it ... [T]he person who is responsible for the dirty work at End House is diabolically clever, but not quite clever enough to fool the little Belgian detective all the time. A good story with a most surprising finish."

Robert Barnard: "A cunning use of simple tricks used over and over in Christie's career (be careful, for example, about names – diminutives and ambiguous male-female Christian names are always possibilities as readers discover). Some creaking in the machinery, and rather a lot of melodrama and improbabilities, prevent this from being one of the very best of the classic specimens."

Christie scholar John Curran ranked Peril at End House as one of her ten best novels.

References to other works

Two references (in chapters 1 and 5) are made to the events told in The Mystery of the Blue Train and it is clearly stated in chapter 1 that Peril at End House takes place the August following Poirot's trip to the French Riviera described in that book.
In chapter 9, there is a remark in passing, on the cleverest type of crime, which later became the theme of Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, which ends with his death.
At the beginning of chapter 14, Hastings describes how Poirot's obsession for tidiness helped him solve a case when he straightened ornaments on a mantelpiece. This is an indirect reference to The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
In chapter 15, Poirot mentions the case "The Chocolate Box" included in the book Poirot's Early Cases, when he tells Commander Challenger that he indeed had failures in the past.
In chapter 16, Inspector Japp asks Poirot if he had not retired to grow marrows. This is an indirect reference to the failed attempt at retirement depicted in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, when Poirot settled in the small village of King's Abbot, only to be prompted to investigate a murder in the village.

Allusions to actual history, geography and current science

Transposed from Devon to Cornwall, the Majestic Hotel of the book is based on the Imperial Hotel in Torquay.
In chapter seven, reference is made by the characters to a female aviator who went to Australia. This is an allusion to Amy Johnson who made the first solo flight from England to Australia by a woman from 5 May 1930 to 24 May 1930.
The attempt by Michael Seton to fly solo around the world is a key element in the novel, which was released in 1932. At the time, the feat had never been achieved; in 1933, Wiley Post became the first aviator to circumnavigate the globe.

Publication history

right|thumb|Dustjacket illustration of the UK First Edition (Book was first published in the US)

1932, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), February 1932, Hardcover, 270 pp
1932, Collins Crime Club (London), March 1932, Hardcover, 256 pp
1938, Modern Age Books (New York), Hardcover, 177 pp
1942, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, (Pocket number 167), 240 pp
1948, Penguin Books, Paperback, (Penguin number 688), 204 pp
1961, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 191 pp
1966, Pan books X521, Paperback
1978, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 327 pp,
2007, Facsimile edition (Facsimile of 1932 UK first edition), 2 April 2007, Hardcover, 256 pp

The first true publication of the book was the US serialisation in the weekly Liberty magazine in eleven instalments from 13 June (Volume 8, Number 24) to 22 August 1931, (Volume 8, Number 34). There were slight abridgements to the text, no chapter divisions, and the reference in Chapter III to the character of Jim Lazarus as, "a Jew, of course, but a frightfully decent one" was deleted. The serialisation carried illustrations by W.D. Stevens. In the UK, the novel was serialised in the weekly Women's Pictorial magazine in eleven instalments from 10 October (Volume 22, Number 561) to 19 December 1931, (Volume 22, Number 571) under the slightly different title of The Peril at End House. There were slight abridgements and no chapter divisions. All of the instalments carried illustrations by Fred W. Purvis.

Book dedication

The dedication of the book reads:

<blockquote>To Eden Phillpotts. To whom I shall always be grateful for his friendship and the encouragement he gave me many years ago.</blockquote>

In 1908, Christie was recovering from influenza and bored, and she started to write a story at the suggestion of her mother, Clara Miller (see the dedication to The Mysterious Affair at Styles). This suggestion sparked Christie's interest in writing and several pieces were composed, some of which are now lost or remain unpublished (one exception to this is The Call of Wings which later appeared in The Hound of Death in 1933). These early efforts were mostly short stories, but at some point late in the year Christie attempted her first novel, Snow Upon the Desert. She sent it to several publishers but they all rejected the work. At Clara's suggestion she then asked Phillpotts to read and critique both the book and other examples of her writing. He was a neighbour and friend of the Miller family in Torquay. He sent an undated reply back which included the praise that, "some of your work is capital. You have a great feeling for dialogue". In view of her later success in allowing readers to judge characters' feelings and motivations for themselves (and in doing so, thereby deceiving themselves as to the identity of the culprits), Phillpotts offered valuable suggestions to, "leave your characters alone, so that they can speak for themselves, instead of always rushing in to tell them what they ought to say, or to explain to the reader what they mean by what they are saying". He gave her further advice in the letter regarding a number of suggestions for further reading to help improve her work.

Phillpotts gave Christie an introduction to his own literary agents, Hughes Massie, who rejected her work (although in the early 1920s, they did start to represent her). Undaunted, Christie attempted another story, now lost, called Being So Very Wilful, and again asked Phillpotts for his views. He replied on 9 February 1909 with a great deal more advice and tips for reading. In her autobiography, published posthumously in 1977, Christie wrote, "I can hardly express the gratitude I feel to him. He could so easily have uttered a few careless words of well-justified criticism and possibly discouraged me for life. As it was, he set out to help".

Dustjacket blurb

The blurb on the inside flap of the dustjacket of the UK first edition (which is also repeated opposite the title page) reads:<blockquote>Three near escapes from death in three days! Is it accident or design? And then a fourth mysterious incident happens, leaving no doubt that some sinister hand is striking at Miss Buckley, the charming young owner of the mysterious End House. The fourth attempt, unfortunately for the would-be murderer, is made in the garden of a Cornish Riviera hotel where Hercule Poirot, the famous Belgian detective, is staying. Poirot immediately investigates the case and relentlessly unravels a murder mystery that must rank as one of the most brilliant that Agatha Christie has yet written.</blockquote>

Adaptations

Stage

The story was adapted into a play by Arnold Ridley in 1940 and opened in the West End of London at the Vaudeville Theatre on 1 May. Poirot was played by Francis L. Sullivan.

Television and film

A Soviet film version, entitled Zagadka Endkhauza, was made in 1989 by Vadim Derbenyov, with Anatoly Ravikovich as Poirot.

The novel was adapted for television in 1990, as part of the Agatha Christie's Poirot second series; it was the first full-length novel to be adapted. Poirot was portrayed by David Suchet and Nick Buckley by Polly Walker. Overall, the film was faithful to the novel; however, Freddie's husband does not appear in the film nor does he shoot at Nick during the denouement, Challenger is arrested rather than being allowed to flee, and the fates of Freddie and Jim remain unresolved.

Colonel Weston had been omitted from the adaptation and Miss Lemon added. This episode was filmed in Salcombe, Devon near Agatha Christie's home town of Torquay, rather than on the Cornish Coast where the story is set.

The novel was adapted as an episode of the Japanese animated series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, under the title "The Mystery of End House". It aired in 2004.

The novel was again adapted as the fourth episode of the first season of the French television series Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie, airing in 2009.

Radio

Peril at End House was adapted for radio by Michael Bakewell for BBC Radio 4 featuring John Moffatt as Poirot and Simon Williams as Captain Hastings.

Computer game

On 22 November 2007, Peril at End House, like Death on the Nile, was adapted into a PC game by Floodlight Games, and published as a joint venture between Oberon Games and Big Fish Games, with the player once again taking the role of Poirot as he searches End House and other areas in Cornwall Coast for clues, and questions suspects based on information he finds, this time through the clue cards he gains on the way. Two other titles developed by Floodlight Games were later released based on Christie's Dead Man's Folly and 4.50 from Paddington respectively.

Graphic novel

Peril at End House was released by HarperCollins as a graphic novel adaptation in 2008, adapted by Thierry Jollet and illustrated by Didier Quella-Guyot ().