A 1921 first of Agatha Christie’s 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles' sold at £3700 in a Keys of Aylsham auction.
Her very first book and one that marked the debut of Hercule Poirot, it was written in response to a challenge by her sister that she try to write a detective story.
In original brown cloth bearing a stylised, architectural design, it was bid to £3700, a price that auction records suggest has only once been bettered – by a copy, inscribed to My dear Pop, that made £8000 at Sotheby’s in 2009. That one had the front panel of the dust jacket affixed to the upper pastedown and was accompanied by a letter to her father and other related material.
Featuring the same design to the covers, but this time in dark orange cloth, a 1923 first of her third book, The Murder on the Links, realised £800
