CHRISTIE, Agatha (1890-1976). A Murder is Announced. London: for The Crime Club by Collins, 1950.

First edition in a very good dust-jacket. Presentation copy, inscribed in the month of publication by the author to her secretary, amanuensis and close friend Charlotte 'Carlo' Fisher: 'Carlo with love from Agatha June 1950'. A. A. Milne, reviewing this novel in The Spectator, wrote: ‘A new novel by Miss Agatha Christie always deserves to be placed at the head of any list of detective fiction, and her fiftieth book, A Murder is Announced, establishes firmly her claim to the throne of detection. The plot is as ingenious as ever, the writing more careful, the dialogue both wise and witty […] Long may she flourish’ (quoted in C. Osborne, The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, 1999, p. 242). Hubin p. 80.

Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in black (some spotting or staining to text towards end of book, endpapers with minor spotting, spine sunned and a little marked, top edge of boards sunned and a little spotted, corners and spine ends gently bumped); original pictorial dust-jacket supplied from another copy (slightly worn and creased, some loss to spine ends and ends of folds, edges rather chipped and creased). Provenance: Charlotte 'Carlo' Fisher (1895-1976, secretary, amanuensis and close friend of Agatha Christie; presentation inscription by the author on front free endpaper, and with Fisher’s posthumous book label).