The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published 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...

 in 1948

1948 in literature

The year 1948 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The Pulitzer Prize for the Novel is renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction....

. The first edition retailed at $2.50. The story The Second Gong 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...

, the only character in the stories who appears in any other of Christie's works.

Each story, has also appeared in either of the UK collections The Hound of Death

The Hound of Death

The Hound of Death and Other Stories is a collection of twelve short stories by Agatha Christie first published in the United Kingdom in October 1933...

, The Listerdale Mystery

The Listerdale Mystery

The Listerdale Mystery is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins and Sons in June 1934. The book retailed at seven shillings and sixpence...

or Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories

Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories

Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories is a short story collection by Agatha Christie published in the UK only in November 1991 by HarperCollins. It was not published in the US but all the stories contained within it had previously been published in American volumes. The UK edition retailed at...

and therefore this collection was not published in the UK. Some of the stories are fantasy fiction rather than mysteries.

List of stories

• Accident
• The Fourth Man
• The Mystery of the Blue Jar
• The Mystery of the Spanish Shawl (a.k.a. Mr. Eastwood's Adventure)
• Philomel Cottage
• The Red Signal
• The Second Gong
  Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories
  Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories is a short story collection by Agatha Christie published in the UK only in November 1991 by HarperCollins. It was not published in the US but all the stories contained within it had previously been published in American volumes. The UK edition retailed at...
  
  
• Sing a Song of Sixpence
• S.O.S.
• Where There's a Will (a.k.a. Wireless)
• The Witness for the Prosecution
  The Witness for the Prosecution
  "The Witness for the Prosecution" is a famous short story by Agatha Christie, initially published as Traitor Hands in Flynn's Weekly edition of January 31, 1925. In 1933 the story was published for the first time in the collection The Hound of Death that appeared only in the United Kingdom...
  
  

Publication history

• 1948, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 272 pp
• 1956, Dell Books, Paperback, (Dell number 855), 192 pp
• 1984, Berkley Books
  Berkley Books
  Berkley Books is an imprint of Penguin Group that began as an independent company in 1955. It was established by Charles Byrne and Frederic Klein, who were working for Avon and formed "Chic News Company". They renamed it Berkley Publishing Co. in 1955. They soon found a niche in science fiction...
  
  , Paperback, (Berkley number 07997-X), 230 pp

First publication of stories in the U.S.

The first US magazine publication of all the stories has not been fully documented. A partial listing is as follows:

• The Mystery of the Blue Jar: a 1924 issue of Metropolitan Magazine.
• The Witness for the Prosecution: January 31, 1925 issue of Flynn's Weekly (Volume IV, No 2) under the title Traitor Hands with an uncredited illustration.
• Where There's a Will: March 1, 1926 issue of Mystery Magazine under the title Wireless.
• The Second Gong: June 1932 (Volume LIIX, Number 6) issue of the Ladies Home Journal with an illustration by R.J. Prohaska.

In addition, the following were published unillustrated in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine:

• Accident: March 1943 (Volume 4, Number 2)
• Sing a Song of Sixpence: February 1947 (Volume 9, Number 39)
• The Mystery of the Spanish Shawl: April 1947 (Volume 9, Number 41)
• The Red Signal: June 1947 (Volume 9, Number 43)
• The Fourth Man: October 1947 (Volume 10, Number 47)
• S.O.S.: December 1947 (Volume 10, Number 49)

For first publications in the UK, see the applicable UK collections referenced above.

External links

• The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories at the official Agatha Christie website