The Passing of Mr Quinn
Reprinted for the first time in almost 90 years, this original novelisation of the very first Agatha Christie film is a unique record of the Queen of Crime’s movie debut and a bold attempt to turn one of her favourite short stories into a thrilling silent movie.Who poisoned the cruel and sinister Professor Appleby? Derek Capel, his neighbour, in love with the Professor’s wife, Eleanor? Vera, the house-parlourmaid, Appleby’s mistress? Or was it Eleanor Appleby herself? All three could be reasonably suspected of a motive which would prompt them to poison the most hateful villain who ever crossed the pages of fiction . . .The first ever Agatha Christie film was a 1928 black and white silent movie, loosely based on her first ‘Harley Quin’ story. Although no script or print of the film survives, this rare novelisation from the same year is a unique record of Christie’s first association with the motion picture industry – now in its remarkable tenth decade with the release of Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express.Reprinted for the first time in almost 90 years, this Detective Club edition includes an introduction by film and television historian Mark Aldridge, author of the authoritative Agatha Christie On Screen (2016), who reveals why the film’s harshest critic was Agatha Christie herself.
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‘THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB is a clearing house for the best detective and mystery stories chosen for you by a select committee of experts. Only the most ingenious crime stories will be published under the THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB imprint. A special distinguishing stamp appears on the wrapper and title page of every THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB book—the Man with the Gun. Always look for the Man with the Gun when buying a Crime book.’
Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1929
Now the Man with the Gun is back in this series of COLLINS CRIME CLUB reprints, and with him the chance to experience the classic books that influenced the Golden Age of crime fiction.
E. C. BENTLEY • TRENT’S LAST CASE
E. C. BENTLEY • TRENT INTERVENES
E. C. BENTLEY & H. WARNER ALLEN • TRENT’S OWN CASE
ANTHONY BERKELEY • THE WYCHFORD POISONING CASE
ANTHONY BERKELEY • THE SILK STOCKING MURDERS
LYNN BROCK • NIGHTMARE
BERNARD CAPES • THE MYSTERY OF THE SKELETON KEY
AGATHA CHRISTIE • THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
AGATHA CHRISTIE • THE BIG FOUR
HUGH CONWAY • CALLED BACK
HUGH CONWAY • DARK DAYS
EDMUND CRISPIN • THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE CASK
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE PONSON CASE
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE GROOTE PARK MURDER
FRANCIS DURBRIDGE • BEWARE OF JOHNNY WASHINGTON
J. JEFFERSON FARJEON • THE HOUSE OPPOSITE
RUDOLPH FISHER • THE CONJURE-MAN DIES
FRANK FROËST • THE GRELL MYSTERY
FRANK FROËST & GEORGE DILNOT • THE CRIME CLUB
ÉMILE GABORIAU • THE BLACKMAILERS
ANNA K. GREEN • THE LEAVENWORTH CASE
VERNON LODER • THE MYSTERY AT STOWE
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE RASP
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE NOOSE
PHILIP MACDONALD • MURDER GONE MAD
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE MAZE
NGAIO MARSH • THE NURSING HOME MURDER
R. A. V. MORRIS • THE LYTTLETON CASE
ARTHUR B. REEVE • THE ADVENTURESS
FRANK RICHARDSON • THE MAYFAIR MYSTERY
R. L. STEVENSON • DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE
EDGAR WALLACE • THE TERROR
ISRAEL ZANGWILL • THE PERFECT CRIME
FURTHER TITLES IN PREPARATION
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in The Novel Library by The London Book Co., an imprint of Wm Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1928
Novelisation © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1928
Introduction © Mark Aldridge 2017
Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1928, 2017
The publishers would like to thank Agatha Christie Ltd for their co-operation in the publication of this edition.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008243968
Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008243975
Version: 2017-08-08
Table of Contents
OF the many publications that have been associated with (but not written by) Agatha Christie, The Passing of Mr Quinn is certainly one of the most curious—and, until now, one of the rarest. Originally published in 1928, the book is actually a novelisation of the silent film of the same title, which had been released the same year and was the very first screen adaptation of an Agatha Christie story. The film itself is now lost, along with its script, meaning that this tie-in publication is our best insight into this filmmaking first. The movie was publicised as an adaptation of Christie’s short story ‘The Passing of Mr Quinn’, which had introduced the charming but mysterious stranger Harley Quinn, a man whose sudden appearance motivates characters to untangle a mystery that has been hanging over them for many years.
The timeline for the story might initially seem to be reasonably straightforward: Agatha Christie’s original short mystery ‘The Passing of Mr Quinn’ was published in the March 1924 edition of The Grand Magazine before being adapted into the July 1928 film that used the same title. The film’s new interpretation of the mystery was then novelised as this book, The Passing of Mr Quinn, and Christie’s original short story was later published in April 1930 as the opening part of the short story collection The Mysterious Mr Quin, where it was renamed ‘The Coming of Mr Quin’, perhaps to differentiate it from the film and this novelisation. However, the development of this story is a little more complicated than this timeline may indicate.
