IN FOCUS: Agatha Christie's The Seven Dials Mystery

For the last few years Agatha Christie Limited has promoted reading (or re-reading) Christie books through their Read Christie campaigns.  Each month a different novel is selected that will be a focus for their online book club.  To further build on this focus, I periodically profile one of their selections. For April 2025, they have chosen The Seven Dials Mystery.

Despite its questionable credibility as a story, it is a book I enjoy, though primarily for the characters, especially Bundle Brent. Many of the characters from Christie’s 1925 novel The Secret of Chimneys feature here, including the aforementioned Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent, as well as Lord Caterham, Bill Eversleigh, George Lomax, Tredwell and Superintendent Battle.  While almost all of the characters fail to appear in future novels, Superintendent Battle does go on to fully feature in three further mysteries. These are Cards on the Table, Murder is Easy and Towards Zero.

The novel was written in the late 1920s and first published in 1929. In her autobiography, Agatha Christie described The Seven Dials Mystery as a light-hearted thriller. It was promoted as her 'best novel since The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' and also 'as good as' that novel.

Though newspaper reviewers were generally not friendly towards it, with The Times Literary Supplement calling it a gothic romance novel and The New York Times Book Review stating it was below her standard.

While these contemporary newspaper reviews were generally not flattering, I think the book has aged acceptably well and is worth a read or re-read. Others must agree, as Netflix will be releasing a new production of this title later this year starring Mia McKenna-Bruce as Bundle Brent, Helena Bonham Carter as Lady Caterham, and Martin Freeman as Superintendent Battle.

First Editions:

First Magazine or Newspaper Appearance:

Like many of Agatha Christie’s novels and short stories, The Seven Dials Mystery first appeared serialised prior to the book's publication. The first known serialization of the novel appears to have been in the Daily News and Westminster Gazette (London).

1928: Daily News & Westminster Gazette. Serialised from September 3rd until October 18th.

After its book launch, the novel was also serialised in Canada towards the end of 1929.

1929: Toronto Daily Star. Serialised in 30 parts from 1 Nov - 5 Dec 1929.

The Toronto Daily Star had a publishing partnership with Agatha Christie that lasted for decades following this serialization. Five additional Christie novels appeared in the Daily Star up until 1954. The weekly supplement, The Weekly Star, published many more Christie novels and short stories, up until 1974.

First Book Editions.

First Edition: Published 24 January 1929 by William Collins and Sons (London) as part of their Collins Detective Novel imprint.

The book was priced 7/6 net (seven shillings and sixpence) on the spine. As shown earlier, promotional material for this novel that appeared a few weeks earlier included some wonderful period advertisements in the newspapers.

While the month was not provided in the first edition, it is worth noting that later editions state the month of the 'First Impression' to be February. So I speculate it was planned for a February launch, but ultimately released a week early.

First American Edition: Published March 1929 by Dodd Mead and Company (New York). The book is priced $2.00 on the front flap.

The book was marketed as ‘The Detective Story Club’s March Selection’, which was also used as a selling point in British advertisements (below).

The exact release date is the USA is unknown, though American libraries were stating the book was in stock by March 7th, 1929. Thus I expect a March 1st launch date was targeted.

I provide more comments on this jacket's artwork later in this article as I consider it one of the best dustjackets to ever adorn a Christie novel and captures a unique moment in time.

Later Editions:

British Reprints: Collins reprinted this title two more times in 1929. The second edition was in July and the third edition in December. While I cannot be certain, it appears from newspaper advertisements that the novel was still selling for 7/6. The 3rd edition was published in December 1929 and its price is unclear. The 4th edition, published in March 1930, was Collins 'Cheaper Edition' and was priced 3/6 (note: The British Catalogue of Books shows it to have been published in February 1930). As you can see from the image below Collins put the price on the spine making these 3/6 jackets ineligible to be deceptively 'married' to a first edition.

In July 1930, the fifth edition was printed - now a Collins 'Cheap Edition' and priced 1/- net. May 1932 saw the sixth edition while July 1933 saw the seventh edition printed. It is unclear what the price was for these editions, but I expect it remained at 1/- net.

American Reprints: In the USA, the book was quickly reprinted – in fact two more times in March 1929 alone. While it is often thought that Dodd Mead did not do reprints, publishing records shows that they did do the 2nd and 3rd printings (see images below).

Dodd, Mead & Co. did consistently assign reprinting rights to Grosset & Dunlap who could then sell the back catalogue at a lower price point. While the Grosset & Dunlap reprint retained the cover art on the front panel, the original Dodd, Mead & Co. artwork was wraparound in design (see the full jacket later in this article) – extending across the spine, rear panel and even the flaps – something the reprints did not replicate.

As the printing history above shows, the two Grosset & Dunlap reprints both occured in 1930. These books are still very collectible and uncommon to find.

Other Printings of Note.

The first omnibus of Agatha Christie’s work published by Collins was in 1932. It contained four stories and is surprisingly scarce. I have yet to see a dust jacket for this book.

1932: The Agatha Christie Omnibus of Crime. Collins, London, UK.

Contains: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928), The Sittaford Mystery (1931) and The Seven Dials Mystery (1929).  Published in April 1932 and priced at 7/6. While The Secret of Chimneys should have been included since it precedes The Seven Dials Mystery, the publishing rights for that novel were controlled by The Bodley Head, not Collins.

1944: Books, Inc. While hardback publishing in the UK remained with Collins, the US market had an authorized edition published in August 1944 by Books, Inc. as part of their ‘Midnite Mystery’ low-cost printings.

Lastly, as it relates to hardbacks, in 2010, HarperCollins produced the official facsimile edition of the first printing which also reproduced the original artwork. Slightly smaller in size, these jackets cannot be married to original printings.

Foreign Language Editions.

The earliest foreign language version of the book I've been made aware of is the Swedish edition, published in 1930. Thank you to collector Jimmy Karlsson for this information and the images of the book, and for additional insights contributing to this article.

[Sweden] 1930: De Sju Urens Mysterium. Albert Bonniers Forlag, Sweden.

Another early foreign language edition is from Italy in 1936.

[Italy] 1936: I Sette Quadranti. No.153, I Libri Gialli, Mondadori. As the cover art shows, the artist was clearly heavily inspired by the original Collins design!

This book was also published prior to The Secret of Chimneys, which did not appear in Italy until 1949. This implies that Mondadori was working more closely with Collins rather than The Bodley Head.

Paperbacks:

The first paperback of The Seven Dials Mystery was published only five years after the hardback release. In 1934, Collins issued the title as part of their 6d paperback series.

First Paperback: March 1934, Collins, London, UK. Priced 6d, as issued as number 163.

The images above from the paperback collector Hugh Rivington.

First US Paperback: October 1942: Bestseller Mystery, New York, USA. Issued as number B32. Note: this printing was abridged, primarily due to a standardized format and paper rationing during the war.

Other paperbacks of note:

1938: Collins White Circle. The printing of this book was likely in September 1938, although it is dated August. Numbered 47 in this still relatively new imprint, this was only the seventh Christie title to be printed as a White Circle paperback. It was originally issued in a dust jacket. The rear of the jacket references Crime Club titles 1-49. Of note, since Collins printed both the hardback and paperback versions of this title, they referenced it as the 12th edition.

Images for this book and Penguin 687 below from collector Jules Burt.

1948: Penguin Books. Number 687. Priced 1/6, with a photograph and brief autobiography of Agatha Christie on the rear panel.

1954: Fontana Books. This is the first Fontana, published on April 5th, 1954, and numbered 23. It was only the third Christie title published by Fontana. The artwork was by John Rose.

1957: Avon Books. New York. Priced 35 cents and numbered T-167. This is the first complete US paperback printing as it confirms at the bottom of the cover that it is 'complete and unabridged'.

1962: Pan Books. Great Pan Number 571.

1967: Fontana. In September, Fontana issued a new version of this book with cover art by Tom Adams as number 1561 in their series (4th Fontana impression). The first impression of No. 1561 is highly collectible as the cover title was printed incorrectly as ‘Seven Dials Mystery’, rather than ‘The Seven Dials Mystery’. 

While this was corrected on the 5th impression in 1970, this error likely led to the next error Fontana made which was to publish ‘Third Girl’ as ‘The Third Girl’. I hypothesize that whoever was reprimanded for leaving off the ’The’ wasn’t going to let that happen again and so added one that wasn't needed!

1982: Fontana. Martin Baker’s new cover design for Fontana was published this year, numbered 6451.

2024: William Morrow. In the US, William Morrow published a new trade-size paperback of this novel with artwork by Stephen Millership. Of note, Millership used the original 1929 Dodd Mead artwork as the foundation for the design and then modernized it by bringing the silhouetted characters to life with colour and fresh design elements.  

It is important to note that the book is now in the public domain in the USA, meaning that anyone can publish it. While certainly purchasers of books in the US have free choice, my bias would be to only purchase a vintage printing, or a new printing authorized by Agatha Christie Limited.

The Roaring Twenties & Jacket Design.

The Roaring Twenties (1920s) had been in full swing for many years, but by the end of 1928 the US economy was just starting to show signs of stress. Yet the dust jacket created for Seven Dials arguably still portrays the optimism of the times - this was still the 'Roaring Twenties' for many, a period when wealth in the USA doubled and everyone was living large.

Prior to this book, on July 20th, 1928, Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train had been published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in the USA. Having studied the market for first edition books for many decades it is clear to me that the print run for The Mystery of the Blue Train was far larger than The Seven Dials Mystery. Since economic changes were unseen to most in early 1929, it is fair to speculate that poor sales of the prior title (Blue Train) occurred. The book suffered in a number of ways. It was certainly not as good as Christie’s prior novels and the Dodd Mead dust jacket was uninspiring (below left).

I expect that the poor sales influenced both a substantial improvement in the cover art for The Seven Dials Mystery and the 1929 American printing of Partners in Crime (above right). Collectively these two jackets from 1929 are arguably the most beautiful US covers ever created for Christie's works. While that is a bold statement, all the Dodd Mead covers prior and all those since never quite had the vibrancy and joy that these two did.  Collectively their striking art deco designs, both of which wrapped onto the rear panel, captured the glamour, glitz and wealth of those final months before the bubble burst.  While it is unclear who the artist (or artistic team) was, it is probable that the same artist(s) designed both jackets.

Values:

The condition of the jacket is of utmost importance in determining a fair price for either of these books. 

Hardback Values. The first Collins (UK) edition in ‘very good’ condition is valued at £20,000 ($25,000). The book without a jacket is valued at £1,000 when in very good condition. Dodd Mead can be found and often appear in auctions, online book sites, and even periodically eBay (though these tend to be lower quality).  The US first edition of The Seven Dials Mystery is worth £2,000 ($2,500) in a very good jacket. Without a jacket, the book alone is worth £150 ($200).

The Collins Omnibus from 1932 is likely valued at £4,000 ($5,000) if one surfaced in a jacket. The book without a jacket is likely valued at £500-750 if in very good condition. However, there have been no recent sales of this book, and I am yet to see a jacketed copy.

Early reprints of the Collins hardback are still valuable if shod in a jacket with the original artwork – regardless of whether priced 7/6 or 3/6. I expect most 7/6 jackets have now been married to first printings, so it is more likely that collectors will find a 3/6 jacket on a reprint. Expect to pay up to £5,000 ($6,500) for one in very good condition. An early reprint book without a jacket is valued far less, perhaps only £100.

There do not appear to be any Dodd Mead reprints, as all reprints were by Grosset & Dunlap. A jacketed reprint featuring the same artwork is still highly collectible and valued at £500 ($650), while an unjacketed early Grosset is worth £100 ($130) at most.

Later printings (i.e. 1940s onwards) from Collins or any US publisher such as Books, Inc., are generally going to vary from used book pricing up to £100 ($130) at most.

Paperback Values. The 1934 Collins 6d paperback is a scarce and valuable book. I would expect a copy in very good condition could now garner up to £400 ($550). The 1938 Collins White Circle printing is also scarce, but especially in a dust jacket. For a jacketed copy I’d expect the value to be £200 ($250).

Most other paperbacks are all are priced as typical used books and can be found in very good or better condition for £5-10 ($8-13).  Of these, I find the first Tom Adams Fontana printing to be highly appealing as it is an error printing, which will also command value over time and supply is starting to dry up. A fair value for this book in very good condition would be £15-20 ($20-25).

Note: All the data regarding printings, editions and dates is to the best of my knowledge.  Since I have not seen every edition in person, some specifics are missing.  Those that are provided are accurate.  Any information that fills in the gaps or other updates from our readers is most welcome.  They can be sent to CollectChristie@gmail.com.

Other News: The 2025 International Agatha Christie Festival.

I am pleased share that I will be presenting at the 2025 International Agatha Christie Festival. It is a week long festival in Torquay, Devon that is well worth attending. I will be part of a wonderful evening (Thursday 18th Sept) celebrating the artwork of Tom Adams, creator of numerous iconic Agatha Christie book covers. The event begins with an illustrated talk I'm preparing. My talk is titled 'Tom Adams: The Art of the Artist' and in it I'll share exclusive insights into the creative genius of Tom Adams based on my research in his archives. Following my presentation, attendees are invited to the adjacent Torre Abbey Museum for a drinks reception that celebrates the launch of a new and related exhibit 'Tom Adams and Agatha Christie: Partners in Crime' where you will have exclusive access to view the exhibition before its opening to the public on Friday 19th September. More details and tickets can be found at: https://www.iacf-uk.org/festival-2025/literary/tom-adams-and-agatha-christie-partners-in-crime

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