AGATHA CHRISTIE
The Complete Tommy and Tuppence
5-Book Collection
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
AGATHA CHRISTIE® TOMMY & TUPPENCETM Copyright © Agatha Christie Ltd
“Tommy and Tuppence: An Introduction.” Copyright © 2012 John Curran
The Secret Adversary first published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head Limited 1922. Copyright © 1922 Agatha Christie Limited
Partners in Crime first published in Great Britain by Collins 1929. Copyright © 1929 Agatha Christie Limited
N or M? first published in Great Britain by Collins 1941. Copyright © 1941 Agatha Christie Limited
By the Pricking of My Thumbs first published in Great Britain by Collins 1968. Copyright © 1968 Agatha Christie Limited
Postern of Fate first published in Great Britain by Collins 1973. Copyright © 1973 Agatha Christie Limited
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A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007552504
Version: 2017-04-13
Contents
Tommy and Tuppence: An Introduction by John Curran
“Tommy, old thing.”
“Tuppence, old bean”
This exchange from The Secret Adversary (1922) introduces Agatha Christie readers to the detective team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. This light-hearted banter sets the tone not just for this book but also for the future novels and short stories in the series; although calling it a series is somewhat misleading as, unlike Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple and their extensive casebooks, there are only five Tommy and Tuppence titles. They stretch over Christie’s entire writing life, with two titles in both her first and last decade and one from mid-career. The Secret Adversary was her second published novel; while the last novel she ever wrote, Postern of Fate (1973), was also a Tommy and Tuppence. In between there was the short story collection Partners in Crime (1929) and the spy story N or M? (1941), followed by a long gap before the sinister murder-mystery By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968).
Husband-and-wife detective teams are relatively rare in crime fiction, Dashiell Hammett created Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934), their only adventure despite the half-dozen films with William Powell and Myrna Loy that featured them. Pam and Jerry North, the creation of husband-and-wife team Richard and Frances Lockridge, detected their way through twenty-six novels. And although many other detective characters have marriage partners – Inspector French, Gideon Fell, Inspector Alleyn – they are not usually active investigative partners. But Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are unique in meeting, marrying, and becoming parents and grandparents over the fifty years of their crime-solving career.
Unlike Christie’s other detective creations Tommy and Tuppence Beresford age gradually through the series, although it must be admitted that mathematically the chronology does not bear close scrutiny. When we first meet them in The Secret Adversary they are demobbed service personnel from World War I; they are a married couple running a detective agency in Partners in Crime, at the end of which Tuppence announces her pregnancy. While their children are involved in World War II, Mr. and Mrs. Beresford contribute to the war effort by chasing spies in N or M? and they are grandparents investigating a mysterious disappearance from a retirement home in By the Pricking of My Thumbs. In their final adventure the elderly Tommy and Tuppence discover the secret history of their new home in Postern of Fate.
In many ways Tuppence was the model for many of the female protagonists that Christie created throughout her career: Anne Beddingfeld in The Man in the Brown Suit (1924), Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent in The Secret of Chimneys (1925) and The Seven Dials Mystery (1929), Emily Trefusis in The Sittaford Mystery (1931), Lady Frances Derwent in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (1934), and Victoria Jones in They Came to Baghdad (1951). All of these females display characteristics similar to Tuppence: indefatigable curiosity, quick-witted courage, unquestioning loyalty, and a sense of humor; but Tuppence is unique in also being a wife and, later, a mother and grandmother. Unlike many female “sidekicks” Tuppence is very much an equal partner and not simply a helpless female waiting for the braver and more intelligent male to rescue her from