A Pocket Full of Rye
Encyclopedia
A Pocket Full of Rye is a work of detective fiction
by Agatha Christie
and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club
on November 9, 1953, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
the following year. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence
(10/6) and the US edition at $2.75. The book features her detective
Miss Marple
.
Like several of Christie's novels (e.g., Hickory Dickory Dock
, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
) the title and substantial parts of the plot reference a nursery rhyme
, in this case Sing a Song of Sixpence
.
s in the leaves, but not the berries (aril
s), of the European yew tree
- had killed him. His wife was the main suspect in the murder, until she also was murdered, after she drank tea laced with cyanide
. Her lover, Vivian Dubois, was the suspect next, as well as just about everyone that knew the family. Going on the only clue, a pocket full of rye
found on the victim, Miss Marple begins investigating. Marple realizes the murders are arranged according to the pattern of a childhood nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence.
The next to be murdered is a maid named Gladys with whom Miss Marple was acquainted. She knew Gladys to be romantic and gullible. The other maid, Mrs Crump, was hanging out the washing when she found Glady's body all mangled up in the clothes line with a peg on her nose. The younger Fortescue son, Lancelot, suddenly arrives from Kenya
with his new wife. The older son, Percival, admits that his father was senile and ruining the business. Miss Marple discovers that the use of the rhyme in the crimes was to point the finger at an old dealing of the Blackbird Mine, in which old Fortescue was suspected of having killed his partner, MacKenzie, and swindled the mine from his partner's family. The mine is in Kenya
. Thinking that one of the two MacKenzie children is responsible, Miss Marple and Inspector Neele trace Jennifer Fortescue (Percival's wife) to be the daughter of Mackenzie - something that she does indeed admit, as well as taking responsibility for placing dead blackbirds near Rex at various times to remind him of his past crimes. Jennifer's involvement, however, turns out to be a red herring as the murderer is, in fact, Lancelot. He had found out that the Blackbird Mine was valuable and wanted to inherit it, and so he met and romanced his scapegoat Gladys. He talked her into joining the Fortescue household and administering the poison in Rex's morning marmalade, telling her that it was a truth drug and fabricating her a story about needing old Fortescue to tell the truth in order to clear his name for something that he had been falsely accused of. Then, he killed Gladys so that she would not turn him in, and killed his stepmother so that the inheritance went to the children.
of December 4, 1953, said, "Miss Christie's novel belongs to the comfortable branch of detective fiction; it never harrows its readers by realistic presentation of violence or emotion or by making exorbitant demands on their interest in the characters. Crime is a convention, pursuit an intellectual exercise, and it is as if the murderer of the odious financier did but poison in jest. The characters are lightly and deftly sketched and an antiseptic breeze of humour prevails. It is a pleasure to read an author so nicely conscious of the limitations of what she is attempting." He concluded, "Miss Christie has a reputation for playing fair with the reader who likes to assume detective responsibility, and also for being one too many for him. In the present case it may be felt that the hidden mechanism of the plot is ingenious at the expense of probability, but the tale is told with such confidence that (like murder itself, in this pastoral atmosphere) it does not matter very much."
Maurice Richardson in The Observer
of November 15, 1953, said, "Not quite so stunning as some of Mrs. Christie's criminal assaults upon her readers; the soufflé rises all right, but the red herrings aren't quite nifty enough. But how well she nearly always writes, the dear decadent old death-trafficker; they ought to make her a Dame
or a D. Litt
."
Robert Barnard
: "Super-stockbrokerbelt setting, and quite exceptionally nasty family of suspects. (Christie usually prefers to keep most of her characters at least potentially sympathetic as well as potential murderers, but here they are only the latter). Something of a re-run of Hercule Poirot's Christmas
(loathsome father, goody-goody son, ne'er-do-well son, gold-digger wife, etc.), but without its tight construction and ingenuity. And the rhyme is an irrelevancy. Still, a good, sour read."
n film in 1983 (using the Russian edition's translated title, The Secret of the Blackbirds) with Estonia
n actress Ita Ever
as Miss Marple
and then by BBC
on March 7, 1985, with Joan Hickson
in the lead. Despite remaining faithful to the novel, apart from giving the title as "A Pocketful of Rye", the characters of Mrs MacKenzie, Gerald Wright and Elaine Fortescue did not make an appearance. In the end the murderer commits suicide while there is no such thing in the novel. The novel was adapted for the fourth series of the British television series Marple
broadcast on ITV on September 6, 2009, starring Julia McKenzie
as the title character.
The novel was first serialised, heavily abridged, in the UK in the Daily Express
starting on Monday, September 28, and running for fourteen instalments until Tuesday, October 13, 1953.
The novel was first serialised in the US in the Chicago Tribune
in forty-two parts from Monday, January 11, to Saturday, February 27, 1954.
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club
Collins Crime Club
The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...
on November 9, 1953, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990. Its history properly began in 1870, with the retirement of its founder, Moses Woodruff Dodd. Control passed to his son Frank...
the following year. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence
British sixpence coin
The sixpence, known colloquially as the tanner, or half-shilling, was a British pre-decimal coin, worth six pence, or 1/40th of a pound sterling....
(10/6) and the US edition at $2.75. The book features her detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
Miss Marple
Miss Marple
Jane Marple, usually referred to as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in twelve of Agatha Christie's crime novels and in twenty short stories. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster who lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur detective. She is one of the most famous...
.
Like several of Christie's novels (e.g., Hickory Dickory Dock
Hickory Dickory Dock
"Hickory Dickory Dock" or "Hickety Dickety Dock" is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6489.-Lyrics:The most common modern version is:Hickory, dickory, dock,The mouse ran up the clock....
, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" is a popular English language nursery rhyme and counting-out rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 11284.-Lyrics:Common modern versions include:...
) the title and substantial parts of the plot reference a nursery rhyme
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
, in this case Sing a Song of Sixpence
Sing a Song of Sixpence
Sing a Song of Sixpence is a well-known English nursery rhyme, perhaps originating in the 18th century. It is also listed in the Roud folk song index as number 13191.-Lyrics:...
.
Plot summary
When a upper middle class Rex Fortescue dies while having black tea, the police are shocked. Mr. Fortescue died during his morning tea in his office and the diagnosis was that a poison, taxine - a poison found as a mixture of cardiotoxic diterpeneDiterpene
Diterpenes are a type of terpenes composed of four isoprene units. They derive from geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate. Diterpenes form the basis for biologically important compounds such as retinol, retinal, and phytol...
s in the leaves, but not the berries (aril
Aril
An aril is any specialized outgrowth from the funiculus that covers or is attached to the seed. It is sometimes applied to any appendage or thickening of the seed coat in flowering plants, such as the edible parts of the mangosteen and pomegranate fruit, the mace of the nutmeg seed, or the...
s), of the European yew tree
Taxus baccata
Taxus baccata is a conifer native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa, northern Iran and southwest Asia. It is the tree originally known as yew, though with other related trees becoming known, it may be now known as the English yew, or European yew.-Description:It is a small-...
- had killed him. His wife was the main suspect in the murder, until she also was murdered, after she drank tea laced with cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
. Her lover, Vivian Dubois, was the suspect next, as well as just about everyone that knew the family. Going on the only clue, a pocket full of rye
Rye
Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain and as a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe and is closely related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, some whiskeys, some vodkas, and animal fodder...
found on the victim, Miss Marple begins investigating. Marple realizes the murders are arranged according to the pattern of a childhood nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence.
The next to be murdered is a maid named Gladys with whom Miss Marple was acquainted. She knew Gladys to be romantic and gullible. The other maid, Mrs Crump, was hanging out the washing when she found Glady's body all mangled up in the clothes line with a peg on her nose. The younger Fortescue son, Lancelot, suddenly arrives from Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
with his new wife. The older son, Percival, admits that his father was senile and ruining the business. Miss Marple discovers that the use of the rhyme in the crimes was to point the finger at an old dealing of the Blackbird Mine, in which old Fortescue was suspected of having killed his partner, MacKenzie, and swindled the mine from his partner's family. The mine is in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
. Thinking that one of the two MacKenzie children is responsible, Miss Marple and Inspector Neele trace Jennifer Fortescue (Percival's wife) to be the daughter of Mackenzie - something that she does indeed admit, as well as taking responsibility for placing dead blackbirds near Rex at various times to remind him of his past crimes. Jennifer's involvement, however, turns out to be a red herring as the murderer is, in fact, Lancelot. He had found out that the Blackbird Mine was valuable and wanted to inherit it, and so he met and romanced his scapegoat Gladys. He talked her into joining the Fortescue household and administering the poison in Rex's morning marmalade, telling her that it was a truth drug and fabricating her a story about needing old Fortescue to tell the truth in order to clear his name for something that he had been falsely accused of. Then, he killed Gladys so that she would not turn him in, and killed his stepmother so that the inheritance went to the children.
Literary significance and reception
Philip John Stead in The Times Literary SupplementThe Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
of December 4, 1953, said, "Miss Christie's novel belongs to the comfortable branch of detective fiction; it never harrows its readers by realistic presentation of violence or emotion or by making exorbitant demands on their interest in the characters. Crime is a convention, pursuit an intellectual exercise, and it is as if the murderer of the odious financier did but poison in jest. The characters are lightly and deftly sketched and an antiseptic breeze of humour prevails. It is a pleasure to read an author so nicely conscious of the limitations of what she is attempting." He concluded, "Miss Christie has a reputation for playing fair with the reader who likes to assume detective responsibility, and also for being one too many for him. In the present case it may be felt that the hidden mechanism of the plot is ingenious at the expense of probability, but the tale is told with such confidence that (like murder itself, in this pastoral atmosphere) it does not matter very much."
Maurice Richardson in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
of November 15, 1953, said, "Not quite so stunning as some of Mrs. Christie's criminal assaults upon her readers; the soufflé rises all right, but the red herrings aren't quite nifty enough. But how well she nearly always writes, the dear decadent old death-trafficker; they ought to make her a Dame
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
or a D. Litt
Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters is a university academic degree, often a higher doctorate which is frequently awarded as an honorary degree in recognition of outstanding scholarship or other merits.-Commonwealth:...
."
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard is an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.- Life and work :Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Colchester Royal Grammar School and at Balliol College in Oxford....
: "Super-stockbrokerbelt setting, and quite exceptionally nasty family of suspects. (Christie usually prefers to keep most of her characters at least potentially sympathetic as well as potential murderers, but here they are only the latter). Something of a re-run of Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on December 19, 1938 . It retailed at seven shillings and sixpence ....
(loathsome father, goody-goody son, ne'er-do-well son, gold-digger wife, etc.), but without its tight construction and ingenuity. And the rhyme is an irrelevancy. Still, a good, sour read."
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Adapted into a RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n film in 1983 (using the Russian edition's translated title, The Secret of the Blackbirds) with Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
n actress Ita Ever
Ita Ever
Ita Ever is an Estonian film, radio, theater and television actress.Ita Ever began her career in 1953 as a stage actress and has appeared in numerous Estonian and Russian film productions...
as Miss Marple
Miss Marple
Jane Marple, usually referred to as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in twelve of Agatha Christie's crime novels and in twenty short stories. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster who lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur detective. She is one of the most famous...
and then by BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
on March 7, 1985, with Joan Hickson
Joan Hickson
Joan Hickson OBE was an English actress of theatre, film and television, famed for playing Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the television series Miss Marple.- Wivenhoe :...
in the lead. Despite remaining faithful to the novel, apart from giving the title as "A Pocketful of Rye", the characters of Mrs MacKenzie, Gerald Wright and Elaine Fortescue did not make an appearance. In the end the murderer commits suicide while there is no such thing in the novel. The novel was adapted for the fourth series of the British television series Marple
Marple (TV series)
Marple is a British television series based on the Miss Marple and other murder mystery novels by Agatha Christie. It is also known as Agatha Christie's Marple. The title character was played by Geraldine McEwan from the first to third series, until her retirement from the role. She was replaced...
broadcast on ITV on September 6, 2009, starring Julia McKenzie
Julia McKenzie
Julia McKenzie is an English actress, singer, and theatre director. She is best-known for her performance in Fresh Fields, but to current television audiences, she is best known for her role as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple...
as the title character.
Publication history
- 1953, Collins Crime Club (London), November 9, Hardcover, 192 pp
- 1954, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 211 pp
- 1955, Pocket BooksPocket BooksPocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
(New York), Paperback, 186 pp - 1958, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
), Paperback, 191 pp - 1964, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 191 pp
- 1981, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), Hardcover, ISBN 0-00-231681-1
- 2006, Marple Facsimile edition (Facsimile of 1953 UK first edition), January 3, 2006, Hardcover, ISBN 0-00-720852-9
The novel was first serialised, heavily abridged, in the UK in the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
starting on Monday, September 28, and running for fourteen instalments until Tuesday, October 13, 1953.
The novel was first serialised in the US in the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
in forty-two parts from Monday, January 11, to Saturday, February 27, 1954.
International titles
- German: Das Geheimnis der Goldmine (The secret of the gold mine)
- Indonesian: Misteri Burung Hitam (The Blackbird Mystery)
External links
- A Pocket Full of Rye at the official Agatha Christie website