The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Encyclopedia
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction
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...

, first published in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 by William Collins & Sons
William Collins (publisher)
William Collins was a Scottish schoolmaster and publisher.Collins was born near Glasgow in 1789. In 1819 he set up a publishing business, initially selling religious books. He produced the first Collins dictionary in 1824, when he also obtained a licence to publish the Bible...

 in June 1926
1926 in literature
The year 1926 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is founded in Middlebury, Vermont....

 and in the United States 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...

 on the 19th of the same month. It features Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.Poirot has been portrayed on...

 as the lead detective. The UK edition retailed at seven 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....

 (7/6) and the US edition at $
Dollar sign
The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...

2.00.

It is one of Christie's best known and most controversial novels, its innovative twist ending having a significant impact on the genre. The short biography of Christie which is included in the present UK printings of all of her books states that this novel is her masterpiece
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

. Howard Haycraft, in his seminal 1941 work, Murder for Pleasure, included the novel in his "cornerstones" list of the most influential crime novels ever written. The character of Caroline Sheppard was later acknowledged by Christie as a possible precursor to her famous detective 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...

.

Plot summary

The book is set in the fictional village of King's Abbott in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is narrated by Dr. James Sheppard, who becomes Poirot's assistant (a role filled by Captain Hastings
Arthur Hastings
Captain Arthur Hastings, OBE, is a fictional character, the amateur sleuthing partner and best friend of Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot...

 in several other Poirot novels). The story begins with the death of Mrs. Ferrars, a wealthy widow who is rumoured to have murdered her husband. Her death is initially believed to be an accident until Roger Ackroyd, a widower who had been expected to marry Mrs. Ferrars, reveals that she admitted to killing her husband and then committed suicide. Shortly after this he is found murdered. The suspects include Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, Roger's neurotic hypochondriac sister-in-law who has accumulated personal debts through extravagant spending; her daughter Flora; Major Blunt, a big-game hunter; Geoffrey Raymond, Ackroyd's personal secretary; Ralph Paton, Ackroyd's stepson and another person with heavy debts; Parker, a snooping butler; and Ursula Bourne, a parlourmaid with an uncertain history who resigned her post the afternoon of the murder.

The initial suspect is Ralph, who is engaged to Flora and stands to inherit his stepfather's fortune. Several critical pieces of evidence seem to point to Ralph. Poirot, who has just moved to the town, begins to investigate at Flora's behest.

Identity of the murderer

The book ends with a then-unprecedented plot twist
Plot twist
A plot twist is a change in the expected direction or outcome of the plot of a film, television series, video game, novel, comic or other fictional work. It is a common practice in narration used to keep the interest of an audience, usually surprising them with a revelation...

. Poirot exonerates all of the original suspects. He then lays out a completely reasoned case that the murderer is in fact Dr. Sheppard, who has not only been Poirot's assistant, but the story's narrator. Dr. Sheppard was Mrs. Ferrars' blackmailer, and he murdered Ackroyd to stop him learning the truth from Mrs. Ferrars. In the final chapter of Sheppard's narrative (a sort of epilogue
Epilogue
An epilogue, epilog or afterword is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work...

), Sheppard admits his guilt, noting certain literary techniques he used to write the narrative truthfully without revealing his role in the crime or doing anything to suggest that he knew the truth, and reveals that he had hoped to be the one to write the account of Poirot's great failure: not solving the murder of Roger Ackroyd. Thus, the last chapter acts as both Sheppard's confession and suicide note.

Characters

  • Hercule Poirot
    Hercule Poirot
    Hercule Poirot is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. Along with Miss Marple, Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels and 51 short stories published between 1920 and 1975 and set in the same era.Poirot has been portrayed on...

     – retired detective who investigates the central murder
  • Roger Ackroyd – country gentleman, distressed about the recent death of his paramour, Mrs. Ferrars
  • Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd – Mr. Ackroyd's widowed sister-in-law
  • Flora Ackroyd – Mr. Ackroyd's niece and Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd's daughter
  • Ralph Paton – Mr. Ackroyd's stepson, often referred to as his "adopted" son
  • Ursula Bourne – Mr. Ackroyd's parlourmaid, recently quit
  • Major Hector Blunt – big game hunter, Roger Ackroyd's friend and houseguest
  • Geoffrey Raymond – Mr. Ackroyd's secretary
  • John Parker – Mr. Ackroyd's butler
  • Elizabeth Russell – Mr. Ackroyd's housekeeper
  • Charles Kent – Elizabeth Russell's son and drug addict
  • Dr. James Sheppard – the doctor (and the story's narrator
    Narrator
    A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

    )
  • Caroline Sheppard – Dr. Sheppard's spinster
    Spinster
    A spinster, or old maid, is an older, childless woman who has never been married.For a woman to be identified as a spinster, age is critical...

     sister
  • Mrs. Ferrars – who poisons herself at the very beginning of the book
  • Ashley Ferrars – late husband of Mrs. Ferrars, who was poisoned by his wife
  • Inspector Raglan

Literary significance and reception

The Times Literary Supplements review of June 10, 1926, began with "This is a well-written detective story of which the only criticism might perhaps be that there are too many curious incidents not really connected with the crime which have to be elucidated before the true criminal can be discovered". The review then gave a brief synopsis before concluding with "It is all very puzzling, but the great Hercule Poirot, a retired Belgian detective, solves the mystery. It may safely be asserted that very few readers will do so."

A long review in The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...

of July 18, 1926, read in part:
There are doubtless many detective stories more exciting and blood-curdling than The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, but this reviewer has recently read very few which provide greater analytical stimulation. This story, though it is inferior to them at their best, is in the tradition of Poe's
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 analytical tales and the Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...

 stories. The author does not devote her talents to the creation of thrills and shocks, but to the orderly solution of a single murder, conventional at that, instead.
...
Miss Christie is not only an expert technician and a remarkably good story-teller, but she knows, as well, just the right number of hints to offer as to the real murderer. In the present case his identity is made all the more baffling through the author's technical cleverness in selecting the part he is to play in the story; and yet her non-committal characterization of him makes it a perfectly fair procedure. The experienced reader will probably spot him, but it is safe to say that he will often have his doubts as the story unfolds itself.


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 May 30, 1926, said,
No one is more adroit than Miss Christie in the manipulation of false clues and irrelevances and red herrings; and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd makes breathless reading from first to the unexpected last. It is unfortunate that in two important points — the nature of the solution and the use of the telephone — Miss Christie has been anticipated by another recent novel: the truth is that this particular field is getting so well ploughed that it is hard to find a virgin patch anywhere. But Miss Christie's story is distinguished from most of its class by its coherence, its reasonableness, and the fact that the characters live and move and have their being: the gossip-loving Caroline would be an acquisition to any novel.


The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....

 of July 22, 1926, said,
When in the last dozen pages of Miss Christie's detective novel, the answer comes to the question, "Who killed Roger Ackroyd?" the reader will feel that he has been fairly, or unfairly, sold up. Up till then he has been kept balancing in his mind from chapter to chapter the probabilities for or against the eight or nine persons at whom suspicion points. ... Everybody in the story appears to have a secret of his or her own hidden up the sleeve, the production of which is imperative in fitting into place the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle; and in the end it turns out that the Doctor himself is responsible for the largest bit of reticence. The tale may be recommended as one of the cleverest and most original of its kind.


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....

, in A Talent to Deceive: An appreciation of Agatha Christie, writes:
Apart — and it is an enormous "apart" — from the sensational solution, this is a fairly conventional Christie. ... A classic, but there are some better Christies.


Laura Thompson
Laura Thompson
Laura Thompson is a Canadian musician and music columnist for CBC Newsworld's daily arts wrap, CBC News: The Scene.Thompson is also a producer on The Scene and a member of Toronto-based pop band The Good Soldiers.-External links:*...

, Christie's biographer, wrote:
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the supreme, the ultimate detective novel. It rests upon the most elegant of all twists, the narrator
Unreliable narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. This narrative mode is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually...

 who is revealed to be the murderer. This twist is not merely a function of plot: it puts the whole concept of detective fiction on an armature and sculpts it into a dazzling new shape. It was not an entirely new idea ... nor was it entirely her own idea ... but here, she realised, was an idea worth having. And only she could have pulled it off so completely. Only she had the requisite control, the willingness to absent herself from the authorial scene and let her plot shine clear.


In 1944-1946, the noted American literary critic Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...

 attacked the entire mystery genre in a set of three columns in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

. The second, in the January 20, 1945 issue, was titled "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?"

Pierre Bayard
Pierre Bayard
Pierre Bayard is a French author, professor of literature and connoisseur of psychology.Bayard's recent book Comment parler des livres que l'on n'a pas lus?, or "How to talk about books you haven't read", is a bestseller in France and has received much critical attention in English language...

, literature professor and author, in
Qui a tué Roger Ackroyd? (Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?), re-investigates Agatha Christie's Ackroyd, proposing an alternative solution. He argues in favour of a different murderer – Sheppard's sister, Caroline – and says Christie subconsciously knew who the real culprit is.

Alibi (Play)

The book formed the basis of the earliest adaptation of any work of Christie's when the play,
Alibi, adapted by Michael Morton
Michael Morton (dramatist)
Michael Morton was an English dramatist in the early Twentieth Century.His comedy called Detective Sparks opened at the Garrick Theatre in August 1909 to good reviews...

, opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre
Prince of Wales Theatre
The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre on Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner...

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on May 15, 1928. It ran for 250 performances with Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...

 in the role of Poirot. Laughton also starred in the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 run of the play which was retitled
The Fatal Alibi and opened at the Booth Theatre
Booth Theatre
The Booth Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 222 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York City.Architect Henry B. Herts designed the Booth and its companion Shubert Theatre as a back-to-back pair sharing a Venetian Renaissance-style façade...

 on February 8, 1932. The American production was not as successful as the British had been and closed after just 24 performances.

Alibi is especially notable as it inspired Christie to write her first stage play, Black Coffee
Black Coffee (play)
Black Coffee is a play by the British crime-fiction author Agatha Christie which was produced initially in 1930. The first piece that Christie wrote for the stage, it launched a successful second career for her as a playwright....

. Christie, along with her dog Peter, attended the rehearsals of Alibi and found its "novelty" enjoyable. However, "she was sufficiently irritated by the changes to the original to want to write a play of her own."

Alibi (1931 film)

The play was turned into the first sound film to be based on a Christie work. Running 75 minutes, it was released on April 28, 1931, by Twickenham Film Studios and produced by Julius S. Hagan. Austin Trevor
Austin Trevor
Austin Trevor was a Belfast born actor who had a long career in British films and television.He was the first actor to play Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot on screen in three British films during the early 1930s: Alibi , Black Coffee and Lord Edgware Dies...

 played Poirot, a role he reprised later that year in the film adaptation of Christie's 1930 play, Black Coffee
Black Coffee (play)
Black Coffee is a play by the British crime-fiction author Agatha Christie which was produced initially in 1930. The first piece that Christie wrote for the stage, it launched a successful second career for her as a playwright....

.

Adapter: H. Fowler Mear

Director: Leslie Hiscott

Austin Trevor as Hercule Poirot

Franklin Dyall as Sir Roger Ackroyd

Elizabeth Allan as Ursula Browne

J.H. Roberts as Dr. Sheppard

John Deverell as Lord Halliford

Ronald Ward as Ralph Ackroyd

Mary Jerrold as Mrs. Ackroyd

Mercia Swinburne as Caryll Sheppard

Harvey Braban as Inspector Davis

With Clare Greet, Diana Beaumont and Earl Grey

"Campbell Playhouse" radio adaptation

Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

 adapted the novel as a one-hour radio play for the November 12, 1939, episode of the Campbell Playhouse. Welles himself played both Dr. Sheppard and Hercule Poirot.

Adapter: Howard Koch
Howard Koch
Howard Koch is the name of:* Howard Koch , American screenwriter* Howard W. Koch , American film and TV director, producer* Hawk Koch , American film producer...

 and Wyllis Cooper
Wyllis Cooper
Wyllis Oswald Cooper was an American writer and producer.He is best remembered for creating and writing the old time radio programs Lights Out and Quiet, Please -Biography:...



Producer: John Houseman
John Houseman
John Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...



Director: Orson Welles

Cast:

Orson Welles as Hercule Poirot and Dr. Sheppard

Edna May Oliver
Edna May Oliver
Edna May Oliver was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the best-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters.-Early life:...

as Caroline Sheppard

Alan Napier
Alan Napier
Alan William Napier-Clavering was an English actor, best known for portraying Alfred Pennyworth in the 1960s live-action Batman television series.-Early life and career:...

as Roger Ackroyd

Brenda Forbes
Brenda Forbes
Brenda Forbes was a British-American actress of stage and screen.Born as Brenda Evelyn Taylor in Rochford, Essex, the daughter of E. J...

as Mrs. Ackroyd

Mary Taylor as Flora

George Coulouris
George Coulouris
George Coulouris was a prominent English film and stage actor.-Early life:Coulouris was born in Manchester, England, the son of Abigail and Nicholas Coulouris, a merchant of Greek origin. He was brought up both in Manchester and nearby Urmston and was educated at Manchester Grammar School...

as Inspector Hamstead

Ray Collins
Ray Collins (actor)
Ray Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio, and television. One of Collins' best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason.- Biography :...

as Mr. Raymond

Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane was an American stage, film and television actor, songwriter, and theatre director.-Early life:...

 as Parker

BBC Radio 4 adaptation

The novel was adapted as a 1½-hour radio play for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 first broadcast on December 24, 1987. John Moffatt
John Moffatt (actor)
John Moffatt is an English actor and playwright, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Hercule Poirot on BBC Radio....

 made the first of his many performances as Poirot. The adaptation was broadcast at 7.45pm and was recorded on November 2 of the same year.

Adaptor: Michael Bakewell
Michael Bakewell
Michael Bakewell is a British television producer. He is best known for his work during the 1960s, when he was the first Head of Plays at the BBC after Sydney Newman divided the drama department into separate series, serials and plays divisions in 1963...



Producer: Enyd Williams

Cast:

John Moffatt
John Moffatt (actor)
John Moffatt is an English actor and playwright, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Hercule Poirot on BBC Radio....

as Hercule Poirot

John Woodvine
John Woodvine
John Woodvine is an English stage and screen actor who has appeared in more than 70 theatre productions, as well as a similar number of television and film roles.-Early life:...

as Doctor Sheppard

Laurence Payne
Laurence Payne
Laurence Payne was an English actor and novelist.-Early life:Laurence Stanley Payne was born in London. His father died when he was three years old, and he and his elder brother and sister were brought up in by their mother, a Wesleyan Methodist in Wood Green, London...

as Roger Ackroyd

Diana Olsson
Diana Olsson
Diana Olsson is a former Swedish backstroke swimmer. Olsson participated in the 1972 Summer Olympics and in the 1976 Summer Olympics competing in freestyle, backstroke and relay events. Her best individual Olympic result is a 25th place in the 100 m backstroke 1972.-References:...

as Caroline Sheppard

Eva Stuart as Miss Russell

Peter Gilmore
Peter Gilmore
Peter Gilmore is a British actor, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Captain James Onedin in the BBC Television period drama The Onedin Line. He also had roles in eleven Carry On films, and played the heroic lead in the adventure film Warlords of Atlantis...

as Raymond

Zelah Clarke
Zelah Clarke
Zelah Clarke is a television and film actress.She began to work as a television actor in 1972, and her roles include Ceinwen Lloyd in How Green Was My Valley and Susan Nipper in Dombey and Son...

as Flora

Simon Cuff as Inspector Davis

Deryck Guyler
Deryck Guyler
Deryck Guyler was an English actor, best known for his portrayal of officious, short-tempered middle-aged men in sitcoms such as Please Sir! and Sykes.-Early life:...

as Parker

With Richard Tate, Alan Dudley, Joan Matheson, David Goodland, Peter Craze
Peter Craze
Peter Craze is a British actor. He is the brother of actor Michael Craze. He has had many film and television appearances including in Doctor Who, EastEnders and Blake's 7.He is the principal at Drama Studio London....

, Karen Archer and Paul Sirr

Agatha Christie's Poirot

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was adapted as a 103-minute drama transmitted in the U.K. on ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 Sunday January 2, 2000, as a special episode in their series, Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot
Agatha Christie's Poirot is a British television drama that has aired on ITV since 1989. It stars David Suchet as Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was originally made by LWT and is now made by ITV Studios...

. In this adaptation Japp — not Sheppard — is Poirot's assistant, leaving Sheppard as just another suspect. However, the device of Dr. Sheppard's journal is retained as the supposed source of Poirot's voice-over narration and forms an integral part of the dénouement. The plot strayed considerably from the book, including having Sheppard run over Parker numerous times with his car and commit suicide with his gun after a chase through a factory. Ackroyd was changed to a more elderly, stingy man who owns a factory, disliked by many. Mrs Ackroyd is also not as zany as in the book version

Adaptor: Clive Exton

Director: Andrew Grieve

Cast:

David Suchet
David Suchet
David Suchet, CBE, is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy...

as Hercule Poirot

Philip Jackson
Philip Jackson (actor)
Philip Jackson is an English actor, known for his many television and film roles, most notably as Chief Inspector Japp in the television series Poirot and as Abbot Hugo, one of the recurring adversaries in the cult 1980s series Robin of Sherwood. Jackson was born in Retford, Nottinghamshire...

as Chief Inspector Japp

Oliver Ford Davies
Oliver Ford Davies
-Biography:From the King's School, Canterbury, he won a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he read History and became President of the Oxford University Dramatic Society . He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award in 1990 for Best Actor in a New Play for Racing Demon...

as Dr. Sheppard

Selina Cadell
Selina Cadell
Selina Cadell is an English actress. She is the sister of the late actor Simon Cadell and granddaughter of the actress Jean Cadell.....

as Caroline Sheppard

Roger Frost as Parker

Malcolm Terris
Malcolm Terris
Malcolm Terris is a British actor.He had a lengthy career in a large number of television programmes. Possibly his best known role was in When the Boat Comes In, a popular 1970s series, where he played the part of Matt Headley...

as Roger Ackroyd

Nigel Cooke as Geoffrey Raymond

Daisy Beaumont
Daisy Beaumont
Daisy Beaumont is a British actress, arguably most known for her work parodying celebrities such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, Victoria Beckham and Katie Price on the Channel 4 comedy show Star Stories...

as Ursula Bourne

Flora Montgomery
Flora Montgomery
Flora Anne Selina Montgomery is a Northern Irish actress.-Early life and family:She was born at her family's ancestral home in Greyabbey, Newtownards, Ards, County Down, Ulster, Northern Ireland, and educated at Rockport School, daughter of William Howard Clive Montgomery of Rosemount House and of...

as Flora Ackroyd

Vivien Heilbron
Vivien Heilbron
Vivien Heilbron is a Scottish actress.-Career:Heilbron, who was born in Glasgow, achieved fame in her homeland when she appeared in the 1971 BBC Scotland television adaption of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song, in the lead role of Chris Guthrie. "The television programme was quite instrumental...

as Mrs. Ackroyd

Gregor Truter as Inspector Davis

Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber
Jamie Bamber is the stage name of Jamie St. John Bamber Griffith , a British actor known most widely for his roles as Lee Adama on Battlestar Galactica and Detective Sergeant Matt Devlin on the ITV series Law & Order: UK...

as Ralph Paton

Charles Early as Constable Jones

Rosalind Bailey
Rosalind Bailey
Rosalind Bailey is a British actress known for her portrayal of Sarah Headley née Lytton in the 1970/80s BBC television drama When the Boat Comes In....

as Mrs. Ferrars

Charles Simon as Hammond

Graham Chinn as Landlord

Clive Brunt
Clive Brunt
Clive Charles Arthur Brunt , is an English actor.Brunt is the eldest of 2 sons. From an early age, he demonstrated an aptitude for acting...

as Naval petty officer

Alice Hart as Mary

Philip Wrigley as Postman

Phil Atkinson as Ted

Elizabeth Kettle
Elizabeth Kettle
Elizabeth Kettle, sometimes known as Liz Kettle, is an English character actress most famously known for her role as Honoria Glossop in the TV series Jeeves and Wooster and a recurring role as a WPC in Inspector Morse.-External links:*...

as Mrs. Folliott

Russian adaptation

In 2002, the story was made into a Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 entitled Неудача Пуаро ("Neudacha Puaro" = "Poirot's Misfortune"). This film version was overall quite faithful to the original story.

Cast:

Konstantin Rajkin as Hercule Poirot

Sergei Makovetsky
Sergei Makovetsky
Sergei Makovetsky is a Russian movie actor.- Filmography :Films:*1982 - To take live!*1990 - Sons of Bitches*1992 - Trotsky - Lev Trotsky*1994 - Burnt by the Sun - Captain*1996 - Of Freaks and Men*1997 - Three Stories...

as Dr. Sheppard

Lika Nifontova as Caroline Sheppard

Olga Krasko
Olga Krasko
Olga Yuriyevna Krasko is a Russian actress, born 30 November 1981, Kharkiv, Soviet Union . She has starred in Russian theater productions, and is noted that as the heroine in The Turkish Gambit , she is the only female in a lead role in that film.-Filmography:* 2001 – Četnické humoresky * 2002 –...

as Flora

Graphic novel adaptation

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was released by HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins 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...

 as a graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

 adaptation on August 20, 2007, adapted and illustrated by Bruno Lachard (ISBN 0-00-725061-4). This was translated from the edition first published in France by Emmanuel Proust éditions in 2004 under the title, Le Meurtre de Roger Ackroyd.

Background

Christie revealed in her 1977 autobiography that the basic idea of the novel was first given to her by her brother-in-law, James Watts of Abney Hall
Abney Hall
Abney Hall is a substantial Victorian house surrounded by a park in Cheadle, Stockport, England . The hall dates back to 1847 and is a Grade II* listed building.-Early history:...

, who in a conversation one day suggested a novel in which the criminal would be a Dr. Watson character: i.e., the narrator of the story. Christie considered it to be a "remarkably original thought".

In March 1924, Christie also received an unsolicited letter from Lord Mountbatten
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...

. He had been impressed with her previous works and had written to her, courtesy of The Sketch
The Sketch
The Sketch was a British illustrated newspaper weekly, which focused on high society and the aristocracy. It ran for 2,989 issues between February 1, 1893 and June 17, 1959. It was published by the Illustrated London News Company and was primarily a society magazine with regular features on royalty...

magazine (publishers of many of her short stories at that time) with an idea and notes for a story whose basic premise mirrored the Watts suggestion. Christie acknowledged the letter and after some thought and planning began to write the book but kept firmly to a plotline of her invention.

In December 1969, Mountbatten wrote to Christie for a second time after having seen a performance of The Mousetrap
The Mousetrap
The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in the West End of London in 1952, and has been running continuously since then. It has the longest initial run of any play in history, with over 24,500 performances so far. It is the longest running show of the modern...

. He mentioned his letter of the 1920s, and Christie replied, acknowledging the part he played in the conception of the book.

Publication

  • 1926, William Collins and Sons (London), June 1926, Hardback, 312 pp
  • 1926, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), June 19, 1926, Hardback, 306 pp
  • 1927, William Collins and Sons (Popular Edition), March 1927, Hardback (Three Shillings and sixpence)
  • 1928, William Collins and Sons (Cheap Edition), February 1928 (One shilling)
  • 1932, William Collins and Sons, February 1932 (in the Agatha Christie Omnibus of Crime along with The Mystery of the Blue Train
    The Mystery of the Blue Train
    The Mystery of the Blue Train is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on March 29, 1928 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence and the US edition at...

    , The Seven Dials Mystery
    The Seven Dials Mystery
    The Seven Dials Mystery is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on January 24, 1929 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year...

    , and The Sittaford Mystery
    The Sittaford Mystery
    The Sittaford Mystery is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1931 under the title of The Murder at Hazelmoor and in UK by the Collins Crime Club on 7 September of the same year under Christie's original title...

    ), Hardback (Seven shillings and sixpence)
  • 1939, Canterbury Classics (William Collins and Sons), Illustrated hardback, 336 pp
  • 1939, Pocket Books
    Pocket Books
    Pocket 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 (Pocket number 5), 212 pp
  • 1948, Penguin Books
    Penguin Books
    Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

    , Paperback (Penguin 684), 250 pp
  • 1957, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins
    HarperCollins
    HarperCollins 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, 254 pp
  • 1964, Modern Author series (William Collins and Sons), Hardback, 254 pp
  • 1967, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins and Sons/Dodd Mead), Hardback, 288 pp
  • 1972, Ulvercroft Large-print Edition, Hardback, 414pp ISBN 0-85-456144-7
  • 2006, Poirot Facsimile Edition (Facsimile of 1926 UK First Edition), HarperCollins, September 4, 2006, Hardback ISBN 0-00-723437-6


The novel received its first true publication as a fifty-four part serialisation in the London Evening News from Thursday, July 16, to Wednesday, September 16, 1925, under the title, Who Killed Ackroyd? Like that paper's serialisation of The Man in the Brown Suit
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Man in the Brown Suit is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and was first published in the UK by The Bodley Head on August 22 1924 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year...

, there were minor amendments to the text, mostly to make sense of the openings of an instalment (i.e., changing "He then..." to "Poirot then..."). The main change was in the chapter division: the published book has twenty-seven chapters whereas the serialisation has only twenty-four. Chapter Seven of the serialisation is named The Secrets of the Study whereas in the book it is Chapter Eight and named Inspector Raglan is Confident.

In the U.S., the novel was serialised in four parts in Flynn's Detective Weekly from June 19 (Volume 16, Number 2) to July 10, 1926 (Volume 16, Number 5). The text was heavily abridged and each instalment carried an uncredited illustration.

The Collins first edition of 1926 was Christie's first work placed with that publisher. "The first book that Agatha wrote for Collins was the one that changed her reputation forever; no doubt she knew, as through 1925 she turned the idea over in her mind, that here she had a winner." To this day, HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins 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...

, the modern successor firm to W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.
William Collins (publisher)
William Collins was a Scottish schoolmaster and publisher.Collins was born near Glasgow in 1789. In 1819 he set up a publishing business, initially selling religious books. He produced the first Collins dictionary in 1824, when he also obtained a licence to publish the Bible...

, remains the UK publishers of Christie's oeuvre.

As stated in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

of January 27, 1936, Ackroyd became one of the very first talking books for the blind. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was listed as one of eight books available through the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

Book dedication

Christie's dedication in the book reads:
"Punkie" was the family nickname of Christie's sister and eldest sibling, Margaret ("Madge") Frary Watts (1879–1950). There was an eleven-year age gap between the two sisters but they remained close throughout their lives. Christie's mother first suggested to her that she should alleviate the boredom of an illness by writing a story. But soon after, when the sisters had been discussing the recently-published classic detective story by Gaston Leroux
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...

, The Mystery of the Yellow Room
The Mystery of the Yellow Room
The Mystery of the Yellow Room: Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille, Reporter by Gaston Leroux, is one of the first locked room mystery crime fiction novels...

(1908
1908 in literature
The year 1908 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Afawarq Gabra Iyasus - Libb Wolled Tārīk , the first novel in Amharic*Leonid Andreyev - The Seven Who Were Hanged...

), Christie said she would like to try writing such a story. Margaret challenged her, saying that she wouldn't be able to. In 1916, eight years later, Christie remembered this conversation and was inspired to write her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Mysterious Affair at Styles is a detective novel by Agatha Christie. It was written in 1916 and was first published by John Lane in the United States in October 1920 and in the United Kingdom by The Bodley Head on January 21, 1921. The U.S...

.

Margaret Watts herself attempted a career as a writer. She wrote a play, The Claimant, based on the Tichborne Case
Tichborne Case
The affair of the Tichborne claimant was the celebrated 19th-century legal case in the United Kingdom of Arthur Orton , an imposter who claimed to be Sir Roger Tichborne , the missing heir to the Tichborne Baronetcy....

. The Claimant enjoyed a short run in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 at the Queen's Theatre
Queen's Theatre
The Queen's Theatre is a West End theatre located in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It opened on 8 October 1907 as a twin to the neighbouring Gielgud Theatre which opened ten months earlier. Both theatres were designed by W.G.R...

 from September 11 to October 18 of 1924, two years before the book publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Dustjacket blurb

The dustjacket blurb
Blurb
A blurb is a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative work, usually used on books without giving away any details, that is usually referring to the words on the back of the book jacket but also commonly seen on DVD and video cases, web portals, and news websites.- History :The...

 read as follows:
M. Poirot, the hero of The Mysterious Affair at Stiles and other brilliant pieces of detective deduction, comes out of his temporary retirement like a giant refreshed, to undertake the investigation of a peculiarly brutal and mysterious murder. Geniuses like Sherlock Holmes often find a use for faithful mediocrities like Dr. Watson, and by a coincidence it is the local doctor who follows Poirot round, and himself tells the story. Furthermore, as seldom happens in these cases, he is instrumental in giving Poirot one of the most valuable clues to the mystery.


The dustjacket blurb is repeated inside the book on the page immediately preceding and facing, the title page.

In popular culture

  • In the novel The Reptile Room
    The Reptile Room
    The Reptile Room is a children's novel and the second of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. It was later released in paperback under the title The Reptile Room; or, Murder! Having just escaped from the greedy and evil Count Olaf in the first book, the Baudelaire children are now...

    , book 2 of A Series of Unfortunate Events
    A Series of Unfortunate Events
    A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of children's novels by Lemony Snicket which follows the turbulent lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire after their parents' death in an arsonous house fire...

    by Lemony Snicket
    Lemony Snicket
    Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American novelist Daniel Handler . Snicket is the author of several children's books, serving as the narrator of A Series of Unfortunate Events and appearing as a character within the series. Because of this, the name Lemony Snicket may refer to both a fictional...

    , the character of Sunny Baudelaire
    Sunny Baudelaire
    Sunny Baudelaire is one of the protagonists of Lemony Snicket's novel series A Series of Unfortunate Events. Sunny is the youngest of the three Baudelaire orphans, and is described as an infant through much of the series...

     uses, as part of her baby babble, the interjection "Ackroid!" as a substitute for the more common "Roger!" to mean "message received and understood."
  • In the Doctor Who
    Doctor Who
    Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

    episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp
    The Unicorn and the Wasp
    "The Unicorn and the Wasp" is the 7th episode in the revised fourth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was aired by BBC One on 17 May 2008 at 19:00. Perhaps due to its later broadcast, it received an overnight audience rating of 7.7 million, making it the...

    ", The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the novel that Lady Eddison is seen reading in a flashback.
  • Gilbert Adair
    Gilbert Adair
    Gilbert Adair is a Scottish author, film critic and journalist. He won the Author's Club First Novel Award in 1988 for his novel The Holy Innocents. In 1995 he won the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for his book A Void, which is a translation of the French book La Disparition by Georges Perec...

    's 2006 locked-room mystery The Act of Roger Murgatroyd
    The Act of Roger Murgatroyd
    The Act of Roger Murgatroyd: An Entertainment is a whodunit by Gilbert Adair first published in 2006. Set in the 1930s and written in the vein of an Agatha Christie novel, it has all the classic ingredients of a 1930s mystery and is, according to the author, "at one and the same time, a...

    was written as "a celebration-cum-critique-cum-parody" of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

International titles

  • Czech: Vražda Rogera Ackroyda (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
  • Dutch: De Moord op Roger Ackroyd (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
  • French: Le Meurtre de Roger Ackroyd (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
  • German: Alibi (Alibi)
  • Greek: Ποιος Σκότωσε τον Άκροϋντ (Who Killed Ackroyd)
  • Hungarian: Az Ackroyd-gyilkosság (The Ackroyd Murder)
  • Italian: L'assassinio di Roger Ackroyd (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), Dalle nove alle dieci (From Nine Until Ten)
  • Portuguese: O Assassinato de Roger Ackroyd (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
  • Romanian: Cine l-a ucis pe Roger Ackroyd? (Who killed Roger Akroyd?)
  • Russian: Убийство Роджера Экройда (i.e. Ubiystvo Rojera Ekroyda, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
  • Spanish: El Asesinato de Rogelio Ackroyd (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, with Roger translated as "Rogelio")
  • Swedish: Dolken från Tunis (The Dagger from Tunis)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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