In 2020, mystery readers around the globe celebrated the 100th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s first published work, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In 1916, Christie’s sister and fellow author, Margaret Frary (Madge) Miller dared her to write a mystery. Inspired by the Belgian refugees of the Great War who had settled near her in Torquay, Christie imagined an odd little detective from a village near Spa, Belgium. In late 1920, she published Styles in the United States and a few months later in the United Kingdom. The rest is Golden Age of Detective Fiction history.
This centenary also marks a transition of sorts for Styles and many of Christie’s other early works. Under the United States’ byzantine copyright laws, several of her mysteries now exist under the public domain. This means that the copyrights for more than half a dozen Christie mysteries (anything published before 1929) expired within the past few years. At the time of their writing, these books remained protected for 95 years. The laws have since changed to extend dates for works published after 1977, which doesn’t impact Christie’s books, the last of which, Postern of Fate, debuted in 1973.
As works in the public domain, these early Agatha Christie mysteries in their original forms can be found online, downloaded, and read for free. Several organizations work to document, scan, and preserve books such as these for future generations. As of this writing in 2024, nine early Christies — eight novels and one short story collection — can be retrieved and read at no cost.
Agatha Christie Mysteries in the Public Domain
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles
• The Secret Adversary
• Murder on the Links
• The Man in the Brown Suit
• The Secret of Chimneys
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
• The Big Four
• The Mystery of the Blue Train
• Poirot Investigates
Like the original Winnie the Pooh and the earliest incarnation of Mickey Mouse, thousands of other novels, stories, and scripts exist in the public domain. If you have a free afternoon, take a dive into these three sources. You will find a lifetime’s worth of reading at your fingertips, all for no charge (or a generous donation, should you choose).
• Wikisource
• Project Gutenberg
• The Internet Archive
The best mystery is the one shared with friends. So, let me know your favorite finds.
