The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
Author Agatha Christie
Cover artist Ellen Edwards
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Crime novel
Publisher William Collins, Sons
Publication date
 June 1926
Media type Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages 312 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN NA
Preceded by The Secret of Chimneys
Followed by The Big Four

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by William Collins, Sons in June 1926[1] and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company on the 19th of the same month.[2] It features Hercule Poirot as the lead detective.

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. 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.[3] The character of Caroline Sheppard was later acknowledged by Christie as a possible precursor to her famous detective Miss Marple.[4]

Plot summary

The book is set in the fictional village of King's Abbott in England. It is narrated by Dr. James Sheppard, who becomes Poirot's assistant (a role filled by Captain Hastings 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 a distraught Roger Ackroyd, a widower who had been expected to marry Mrs. Ferrars, invites Sheppard over to his house, Fernly Park for dinner, having something urgent to tell him.

Sheppard dines with Ackroyd; Ackroyd's neurotic, hypochondriac sister-in-law Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd; her young daughter Flora, engaged to be married to Ackroyd's stepson Ralph Paton; Major Blunt, a big-game hunter; and Geoffrey Raymond, Ackroyd's personal secretary. After dinner, Sheppard is brought into Ackroyd's study, where Ackroyd tells him that Mrs. Ferrars had confided in Ackroyd that she was being blackmailed by someone about killing her husband. Moments later, in Sheppard's presence, Ackroyd receives a letter that Mrs. Ferrars had posted, but he decides to finish reading it later, once Sheppard leaves.

On the walk home, Sheppard bumps into a stranger outside the gates. After returning to his home, where he lives with his gossipy spinster sister, Caroline, Dr. Sheppard receives a telephone call just before going to bed. He soon rushes out, telling Caroline that Parker, Ackroyd's butler, had just informed him of having found Roger Ackroyd murdered. Upon Sheppard's arrival, however, Parker claims to have never made such a call, but he, Sheppard, Raymond, and Blunt find that Ackroyd has indeed been stabbed to death.

Hercule Poirot, who happens to be cultivating vegetable marrows next door to the Sheppards, comes out of retirement at the request of Flora Ackroyd to investigate the murder, since Ralph Paton, who stands to inherit most of his stepfather's fortune, is the primary suspect but is nowhere to be found. Paton's footprints are found on the ledge of the window that Ackroyd had previously asked Sheppard to bolt. Raymond and Blunt both report having overheard Ackroyd speaking to someone from within his study, and Flora's testimony of having spoken to her stepfather before leaving for bed place Ackroyd's death into a narrow time frame for which Parker, Raymond, Blunt, Mrs. Ackroyd, and Miss Russell, the housekeeper, all have alibis. The telephone call placed to Dr. Sheppard is traced to King's Abbott station.

While the police are convinced that Ralph is the killer, Poirot is uncertain, focusing his investigation on several small details, such as the representative of a dictaphone company who had visited Ackroyd some days previously, the exact time at which Dr. Sheppard met the stranger at the Fernly Park gates, and the repositioning of a chair in Ackroyd's study. Poirot also finds a goose quill and a scrap of starched cambric in the summer house, as well as a ring with the inscription "From R." in the backyard pool. Poirot additionally notices that Ursula Bourne, a parlourmaid who had resigned earlier in the afternoon, had no alibi for the murder.

Poirot brings together five people related to the case -- Sheppard, Flora, Mrs. Ackroyd, Raymond, and Blunt -- and states that all of them have been concealing something from him. Dr. Sheppard aids Poirot in finding out what these secrets may be, as well as in conducting research into Ursula Bourne. Raymond and Mrs. Ackroyd both soon reveal that they were in debt, which Ackroyd's death would have resolved, for both were included in Ackroyd's will. Flora eventually confesses to stealing money from Ackroyd's bureau, having told Parker she was there to bid her uncle goodnight to hide her true intentions. In reality, she never entered her uncle's room, so in fact it had apparently been Raymond and Blunt who were the last to hear Ackroyd alive. This leaves Flora, Blunt, Raymond, and Mrs. Ackroyd without alibis. Blunt's secret is also revealed -- he is in love with Flora, and soon they announce their engagement.

More issues are resolved -- the goose quill was a heroin holder belonging to the stranger Sheppard met, who is actually Miss Russell's son; the ring belongs to Ursula Bourne, who had secretly married Ralph Paton. Dr. Sheppard, unbeknownst to the reader, had been helping Ralph hide the entire time. Peculiarly, although Poirot claims to know the killer's identity, he does not reveal it to the assembled group, as is his usual custom, before he dismisses them; he instead issues a warning directed at the killer.

The ending and the identity of the murderer

The book ends with an unprecedented plot twist. Once all of the others have left and Poirot and Sheppard are left alone together, Poirot explains how Sheppard had made use of a dictaphone Ackroyd had lent him in order to fool Raymond and Blunt into thinking that Ackroyd was still alive after Sheppard had left when in fact Sheppard, who has not only been Poirot's assistant, but also the story's narrator, had stabbed Ackroyd just before leaving the house. Poirot had noticed the inconsistency in the time it took for Sheppard to reach the gates, deducing that he must have looped back to Ackroyd's study window, which he had actually left unbolted, and planted Paton's footprints there. Earlier that day, he had instructed a patient of his to phone him from King Abbott's station at a specific time so that he could be on the scene when Ackroyd's body was discovered, in order to have a chance to remove the dictaphone and return the chair that had been concealing it from view to its original place. Sheppard was Mrs. Ferrars' blackmailer, and he murdered Ackroyd to stop him learning the truth from Mrs. Ferrars. Poirot gives Sheppard two choices: either he surrenders to the police, or, for the sake of his reputation and of his proud sister, he commits suicide.

In the final chapter, Dr. Sheppard admits his guilt, noting certain literary techniques he had used to conceal his guilt without having written anything untrue (e.g., writing "I did what little had to be done" at the point where he actually hid the dictaphone and moved the chair). He reveals that he had hoped to be the one to write the account of Poirot's great failure -- that is, not solving the murder of Roger Ackroyd. Thus, the last chapter acts as both Sheppard's confession and his suicide note.

Characters

Literary significance and reception

The Times Literary Supplement's review of 10 June 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."[5]

A long review in The New York Times Book Review of 18 July 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 analytical tales and the Sherlock Holmes 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.[6]
...
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.[6]

The Observer of 30 May 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.[7]

The Scotsman of 22 July 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.[8]

Robert Barnard, 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.[9]

Laura Thompson, 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 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.[10]

In 1944–1946, the noted American literary critic Edmund Wilson attacked the entire mystery genre in a set of three columns in The New Yorker. The second, in the 20 January 1945 issue, was titled "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?"[11]

Pierre Bayard, 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.[12]

In the "Binge!" article of Entertainment Weekly Issue #1343-44 (26 December 2014–3 January 2015), the writers picked The Murder of Roger Ackroyd as an "EW and Christie favorite" on the list of the "Nine Great Christie Novels".[13]

Adaptations

Alibi (Play)

Main article: 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, opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London on 15 May 1928. It ran for 250 performances with Charles Laughton in the role of Poirot. Laughton also starred in the Broadway run of the play which was retitled The Fatal Alibi and opened at the Booth Theatre on 8 February 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. Christie, along with her dog Peter, attended the rehearsals of Alibi and found its "novelty" enjoyable.[14] However, "she was sufficiently irritated by the changes to the original to want to write a play of her own."[14]

Alibi (1931 film)

Main article: 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 28 April 1931, by Twickenham Film Studios and produced by Julius S. Hagan. Austin Trevor played Poirot, a role he reprised later that year in the film adaptation of Christie's 1930 play, Black Coffee.

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

The Campbell Playhouse radio adaptation

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

Adapter: Herman J. Mankiewicz[15]:355
Producer: John Houseman, Orson Welles
Director: Orson Welles

Cast:
Orson Welles as Hercule Poirot and Dr. Sheppard
Edna May Oliver as Caroline Sheppard
Alan Napier as Roger Ackroyd
Brenda Forbes as Mrs. Ackroyd
Mary Taylor as Flora
George Coulouris as Inspector Hamstead
Ray Collins as Mr. Raymond
Everett Sloane as Parker

BBC Radio 4 adaptation

The novel was adapted as a 1½-hour radio play for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast on 24 December 1987. John Moffatt made the first of his many performances as Poirot. The adaptation was broadcast at 7.45pm and was recorded on 2 November of the same year.

Adaptor: Michael Bakewell
Producer: Enyd Williams

Cast:
John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot
John Woodvine as Doctor Sheppard
Laurence Payne as Roger Ackroyd
Diana Olsson as Caroline Sheppard
Eva Stuart as Miss Russell
Peter Gilmore as Raymond
Zelah Clarke as Flora
Simon Cuff as Inspector Davis
Deryck Guyler as Parker
With Richard Tate, Alan Dudley, Joan Matheson, David Goodland, Peter Craze, Karen Archer and Paul Sirr

Agatha Christie's Poirot

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was adapted as a 103-minute drama transmitted in the UK on ITV Sunday 2 January 2000, as a special episode in their series, Agatha Christie's Poirot. 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 strays 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, disliked by many, who owns a factory. Mrs Ackroyd is also not as zany as in the book version.

Adaptor: Clive Exton
Director: Andrew Grieve

Cast:
David Suchet as Hercule Poirot
Philip Jackson as Chief Inspector Japp
Oliver Ford Davies as Dr. Sheppard
Selina Cadell as Caroline Sheppard
Roger Frost as Parker
Malcolm Terris as Roger Ackroyd
Nigel Cooke as Geoffrey Raymond
Daisy Beaumont as Ursula Bourne
Flora Montgomery as Flora Ackroyd
Vivien Heilbron as Mrs. Ackroyd
Gregor Truter as Inspector Davis
Jamie Bamber as Ralph Paton
Charles Early as Constable Jones
Rosalind Bailey as Mrs. Ferrars
Charles Simon as Hammond
Graham Chinn as Landlord
Clive Brunt as Naval petty officer
Alice Hart as Mary
Philip Wrigley as Postman
Phil Atkinson as Ted
Elizabeth Kettle as Mrs. Folliott

Russian adaptation

In 2002, the story was made into a Russian film titled Неудача Пуаро ("Neudacha Puaro" = "Poirot's Failure"). This film version was overall quite faithful to the original story.

Cast:
Konstantin Rajkin as Hercule Poirot
Sergei Makovetsky as Dr. Sheppard
Lika Nifontova as Caroline Sheppard
Olga Krasko as Flora

Graphic novel adaptation

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was released by HarperCollins as a graphic novel adaptation on 20 August 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.

Publication history

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, 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".[16]

In March 1924, Christie also received an unsolicited letter from Lord Mountbatten. He had been impressed with her previous works and had written to her, courtesy of The Sketch 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.[17] 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. He mentioned his letter of the 1920s, and Christie replied, acknowledging the part he played in the conception of the book.[18]

Publication

The novel received its first true publication as a fifty-four part serialisation in the London Evening News from Thursday, 16 July, to Wednesday, 16 September 1925, under the title, Who Killed Ackroyd? Like that paper's serialisation of The Man in the Brown Suit, there were minor amendments to the text, mostly to make sense of the openings of an instalment (e.g., 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 US, the novel was serialised in four parts in Flynn's Detective Weekly from 19 June (Volume 16, Number 2) to 10 July 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."[19]

To this day, HarperCollins, the modern successor firm to W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., remains the UK publishers of Christie's oeuvre.

By 1928, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was available in braille through the Royal National Institute for the Blind[20] and was amongst the first works to be chosen for transfer to Gramophone record for their Books for the Blind library in the autumn of 1935.[21][22] By 1936 it was listed as one of only eight books available in this form.[23]

Book dedication

Christie's dedication in the book reads:

To Punkie, who likes an orthodox detective story, murder, inquest, and suspicion falling on every one in turn!

"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, The Mystery of the Yellow Room (1908), Christie said she would like to try writing such a story. Margaret challenged her, saying that she wouldn't be able to.[24] In 1916, eight years later, Christie remembered this conversation and was inspired to write her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.[25]

Margaret Watts herself attempted a career as a writer. She wrote a play, The Claimant, based on the Tichborne Case. The Claimant enjoyed a short run in the West End at the Queen's Theatre from 11 September to 18 October 1924, two years before the book publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.[26]

Dustjacket blurb

The dustjacket blurb read as follows:

M. Poirot, the hero of The Mysterious Affair at Stiles [sic] 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.[27]

The dustjacket blurb is repeated inside the book on the page immediately preceding and facing, the title page.[27]

In popular culture

International titles

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The English Catalogue of Books: 317
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Marcum
  3. ↑ Collins
  4. ↑ Christie 1977: 433
  5. ↑ The Times Literary Supplement: 397
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 The New York Times Book Review: 18
  7. ↑ The Observer: 10
  8. ↑ The Scotsman: 2
  9. ↑ Barnard 1990: 199
  10. ↑ Thompson 2007: 155–156
  11. ↑ Wilson, Edmund (1944,1945). "WHY DO PEOPLE READ DETECTIVE STORIES?". Retrieved 19 October 2012{{inconsistent citations}} Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ↑ Bayard, Pierre. Qui a tué Roger Ackroyd?. Minuit, 1998. Republished, Reprise, 2002. Published in English as, Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?, Fourth Estate, 2000.
  13. ↑ "Binge! Agatha Christie: Nine Great Christie Novels". Entertainment Weekly (1343-44): 32–33. 26 December 2014.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Thompson 2007: 277
  15. ↑ Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum, This is Orson Welles. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-06-016616-9
  16. ↑ Christie 1977: 342
  17. ↑ Thompson 2007: 500
  18. ↑ Morgan 1984: 120–121
  19. ↑ Thompson 2007: 155
  20. ↑ "A Book Printed For the Asking!". Evening Telegraph (British Newspaper Archive). 24 September 1928. Retrieved 24 July 2014. (subscription required (help)).
  21. ↑ "Talking Books". The Times (London). 20 August 1935. p. 15.
  22. ↑ "Recorded books for the blind". Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer (British Newspaper Archive). 23 August 1935. Retrieved 24 July 2014. (subscription required (help)).
  23. ↑ "Talking Books". The Times (London). 27 January 1936. p. 6.
  24. ↑ Thompson 2007: 102
  25. ↑ Morgan 1984: 77
  26. ↑ Morgan 1984: 113–115
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Christie 1926
  28. ↑ Adair, Gilbert (11 November 2006). "Unusual suspect: Gilbert Adair discovers the real secret of Agatha Christie's success". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 July 2011.

References

External links