They Came to Baghdad is a spy fiction and adventure novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 5 March 1951 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at eight shillings and sixpence (8/6) and the US edition at $2.50.

Maurice Richardson of The Observer (4 March 1951) wrote: "A bit light and frilly, in parts almost giggly, as Agatha Christie's thrillers are apt to be, but it has the usual creamy readability and a deeply planted fiend."

Adaptations

It was adapted as an episode of Westinghouse Studio One in 1952.

Publication history

  • 1951, Collins Crime Club (London), 5 March 1951, hardback, 256 pp
  • 1951, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1951, hardback, 218 pp
  • 1952, Pocket Books (New York), paperback (Pocket number 897), 215 pp
  • 1957, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), paperback, 192 pp
  • 1965, Dell Books, paperback, 221 pp
  • 1965, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, hardcover, 256 pp
  • 1969, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), hardcover, 287 pp
  • 1970, Greenway edition of collected works (Dodd Mead), hardcover, 287 pp
  • 1974, Pan Books, paperback, 221 pp
  • 1978, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, hardcover, 410 pp

In the UK the novel was first serialised in the weekly magazine John Bull in eight abridged instalments from 13 January (Volume 89, Number 2324) to 3 March 1951 (Volume 89, Number 2331) with illustrations by "Showell". An abridged version of the novel was published in the 1 September 1951 issue of the Star Weekly Complete Novel, a Toronto newspaper supplement, with an uncredited cover illustration.

References

  • They Came to Baghdad at the official Agatha Christie website