Agatha Christie

CHRISTIE, Agatha (1890-1976). The Moving Finger. London: for The Crime Club by Collins, 1943.

First UK edition in an unrestored dust-jacket, a very rare presentation copy, inscribed by the author to her daughter: 'Rosalind from Agatha Christie'. We have only been able to trace one other signed copy sold at auction in the past 40 years. 'In her autobiography, Mrs Christie mentioned The Moving Finger as one of her novels that she was "really pleased with". "It is a great test," she added, "to re-read what one has written some seventeen or eighteen years later. One’s view changes. Some do not stand the test of time, others do."' (C. Osborne, The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, 1999, p. 194). Hubin p. 80.

Octavo. Original orange cloth, spine lettered in black (spine and edges of covers sunned; some light stains to binding, corners slightly bumped); original pictorial dust-jacket supplied from another copy (jacket with small loss at head and foot of spine [slightly affecting text] and at ends of folds, crease along spine, rather marked mostly to lower panel, small mark on upper cover from sticker, price-clipped). Provenance: Rosalind Hicks (née Christie; 1919-2004; presentation inscription from her mother on preliminary free endpaper, sale at Bearne’s, Exeter, ‘The Greenway Sale’, property from the home of Dame Agatha Christie, 12 September 2006).