Biography

Endless Night (1967) – Agatha Christie | First Edition Identification Guide

Endless Night is a crime novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 30 October 1967 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at eighteen shillings (18/-) and the US edition at $4.95. It was one of her favourites of her own works and received some of the warmest critical notices of her career upon publication.

Plot Summary

Publication history

Agatha Christie - Endless Night 1967 UK
Endless Night 1967 UK

The novel was published in 1967. Christie later said she normally wrote her books in three to four months but wrote Endless Night in six weeks. The novel is dedicated “To Nora Prichard from whom I first heard the legend of Gipsy’s Acre.” Nora Prichard was the paternal grandmother of Mathew, Christie’s only grandson. Gipsy’s Acre was a field located on a Welsh moorland. The Times Literary Supplement of 16 November 1967 said, “It really is bold of Agatha Christie to write in the persona of a working-class boy who marries a poor little rich girl, but in a pleasantly gothic story of gypsy warnings she brings it all off, together with a nicely melodramatic final twist.”

  • 1967, Collins Crime Club (London), 30 October 1967, Hardcover, 224 pp
  • 1968, Dodd Mead and Company (New York),
  • 1968, Hardcover, 248 pp 1969, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, 181 pp
  • 1970, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 192 pp

In the US, the novel was first serialised in two parts in The Saturday Evening Post from 24 February (Volume 241, Number 4) to 9 March 1968 (Volume 241, Number 5) with illustrations by Tom Adams.

Endless Night – First Edition Book Identification Guide

The books are listed in the order of publication. While the majority of Agatha Christie’s books were first published in the UK. There are many titles that were first published in the US. The title of the book may differs from the UK edition in some cases.

Note about Book Club Editions (BCE) and reprints:

UK: You can see statements of later reprint dates or of book club on the copyright page.

US: The US reprint publishers usually use the same sheets as the first edition and are harder to identify by looking at the title page or the copyright page. One may identify a BCE by looking at the DJ, which doesn’t have a price on top of the front flap and a “Book Club Edition” imprint at the bottom. If the dust jacked is clipped at both the top/bottom of the front flap. You can safely assume it’s a BCE . If the book is missing the dust jacket. Later BCE editions can be identified by its plain boards, while first printings are issued in quarter cloth.

Please refer to the gallery for detailed images of true first edition bindings and dust jackets.

Endless Night – First Edition Dust Jacket Identification Guide

First edition bindings and various dust jacket printings identification.

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