Destination Unknown (novel)
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| Destination Unknown | |
 Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition |
|
| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Not known |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
| Publication date | November 1 1954 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 192 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | A Pocket Full of Rye |
| Followed by | Hickory Dickory Dock |
Destination Unknown is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 1 1954[1] and in US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1955 under the title of So Many Steps to Death[2][3]. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6)[1] and the US edition at $2.75[3].
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Hilary Craven, a deserted wife and bereaved mother, is planning suicide in a Moroccan hotel, when she is asked to undertake a dangerous mission as an alternative to taking an overdose of sleeping pills. The task, which she accepts, is to impersonate a dead woman to help find the woman's husband: a nuclear scientist who has disappeared and may have defected to the Soviet Union. Soon she finds herself in a group of travellers being transported to the unknown destination of the title. Her will to live may have returned, but has it returned too late?
[edit] Major themes
This book explores the 1950s subject of defection to the Soviets, but demonstrates how the breakup of the author's first marriage in the 1920s remained with her. Like her 'Mary Westmacott' novel "Unfinished Portrait" it starts with a youngish woman who has married, had a daughter and whose husband has replaced her with someone else. In both books, a young man displays remarkable perceptiveness in spotting her intention to end her life and defies convention to save her, not only in tackling a stranger on intimate matters but in spending time in the woman's hotel bedroom to talk her out of suicide. In this story he talks her into espionage instead.
[edit] Literary significance and reception
The Times Literary Supplement in its review, written by Philip John Stead, of November 19, 1954 was enthusiastic when it asked, "Where do scientists go when they vanish from the ken of the Security Services? A solution to this fascinating problem is propounded in Destination Unknown. While it must be admitted that the secret, when disclosed, smacks rather of The Thousand and One Nights than of modern international rivalry for scientific talents, it may surely be excused on the ground that it provides Mrs. Christie with a story-tellers holiday from the rigours of detective fiction. Readers may regret the absence of the tonic logicalities of crime's unravelling - though "clues" are not altogether missing - for the secret service story belongs largely to Adventure, but in their place is the author's obvious pleasure in the wider horizons of the more romantic genre." The review concluded, "However much the purist yearns for Poirot or Miss Marple, he can hardly deplore Mrs. Christie's bright, busy excursion into this topical and extravagant sphere."[4]
Maurice Richardson of The Observer of October 31, 1954 said, "The thriller is not Agatha Christie's forte; it makes her go all breathless and naïve." He concluded, "Needs to be read indulgently in a very comfortable railway carriage. She probably had a delicious busman's holiday writing it."[5]
Robert Barnard: "Slightly above-average thriller, with excellent beginning (heroine, whose husband has left her for another woman, and whose small daughter had died, contemplates suicide in strange hotel). Thereafter topples over into hokum, with a notably unexciting climax. Mainly concerns disappearing scientists – it is written in the wake of the Fuchs/Pontecorvo affairs. Mentions the un-American Activities Committee, without obvious disapproval."[6]
[edit] References to actual history, geography and current science
The novel reflects the true-life events of a 1950s espionage case involving Bruno Pontecorvo and Klaus Emil Fuchs, two physicists who defected to the Soviet Union.
[edit] Publication history
- 1954, Collins Crime Club (London), November 1 1954, Hardback, 192 pp
- 1955, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1955, Hardback, 212 pp
- 1956, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, 183 pp
- 1958, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 191 pp
- 1969, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 203 pp
- 1977, Greenway edition of collected works (William Collins), Hardcover, 196 pp ISBN 0-00-231089-9
- 1978, Greenway edition of collected works (Dodd Mead), Hardcover, 196 pp
In the UK the novel was first serialised in the weekly magazine John Bull in five abridged instalments from September 25 (Volume 96, Number 2517) to October 23, 1954 (Volume 96, Number 2521) with illustrations by William Little[7].
The novel was first serialised in the US in the Chicago Tribune in fifty-one parts from Tuesday, April 12 to Thursday June 9, 1955 under the title of Destination X.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions. Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
- ^ John Cooper and B.A. Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide: Second Edition (Pages 82 and 87) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
- ^ a b American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ^ The Times Literary Supplement November 19, 1954 (Page 733)
- ^ The Observer October 31, 1954 (Page 7)
- ^ Barnard, Robert. A Talent to Deceive – an appreciation of Agatha Christie - Revised edition (Page 192). Fontana Books, 1990. ISBN 0006374743
- ^ Holdings at the British Library (Newspapers - Colindale). Shelfmark: NPL LON LD116.
[edit] External links
- Destination Unknown at the official Agatha Christie website
