The Body in the Library

The Body in the Library

Dust-jacket illustration of the US (true first) edition. See Publication history (below) for UK first edition jacket image.
Author	Agatha Christie
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Crime novel
Publisher	Dodd, Mead and Company
Publication date	1942
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	245 pp (first edition, hardcover)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	N or M?
Followed by	Five Little Pigs

The Body in the Library is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1942 and in UK by the Collins Crime Club in May of the same year. The U.S. edition retailed at $2.00 and the UK edition at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). The novel features her fictional amateur detective, Miss Marple.

Plot summary

On a quiet morning in the fictional English village of St Mary Mead, a maid finds a body in the library. She wakes retired Colonel Bantry and his wife to inform them that a young woman, whom they do not know, is dead in their library. The police are called and a complex investigation ensues, spanning the two fictional counties of Radfordshire, where St Mary Mead is located, and neighbouring Glenshire.

The victim is dressed flamboyantly in a tawdry satin evening dress, with hair dyed platinum blonde and heavy make-up. Medical tests show the cause of death to be strangulation, preceded by a heavy sedative. Despite the worldly appearance of the victim, examination reveals that she died virgo intacta. Nevertheless, Mrs Bantry realises that as long as the murder remains unsolved her husband will be a target for suspicion and gossip, so she invites Miss Marple, the village's amateur sleuth, to investigate. It soon turns out that Mrs Bantry's fears were justified, as the populace of the small village exaggerate details of the crime – very soon the body is "naked" rather than fully clothed – and point the finger of blame at Colonel Bantry.

After some deliberation, and the news has broken to many people, all local eyes are turned on the Colonel. The Chief Constable of police, a retired Colonel himself (Colonel Melchett), is more inclined to suspect Bantry's Bohemian young neighbour, Basil Blake. The latter is a minor technician in the film industry who lives the ostentatious, party-going lifestyle of a Hollywood star. Blake, however, has an alibi for the time of death (between 10 pm and midnight).

After numerous enquiries about missing persons, the victim is identified as eighteen-year old Ruby Keene, a professional dancer working at the Majestic Hotel in the seaside resort of Danemouth, eighteen miles away from the scene of the murder, in Glenshire. The body is identified by Ruby's cousin and colleague Josie Turner, who rather than being shocked or upset, seems unaccountably angry at the dead girl's death. Josie relates that she was forced to hire Ruby to take over some of her dancing duties at the resort after Josie suffered a sprained ankle.

The focus of the investigation then shifts from St Mary Mead to Danemouth, and the Majestic Hotel. Besides Josie, the other staff member of interest to the police is Ruby's professional dance partner, Raymond Starr, who also works as the hotel's tennis coach. It was when Ruby failed to turn up for a midnight exhibition dance with Starr that her disappearance was noticed. The last person to have seen Ruby alive was one of the guests, a rather dim-witted young man named George Bartlett. Bartlett has no obvious motive for murder, and in fact appears to be the victim of a crime himself – his car has been stolen from the hotel courtyard.

There is a rather strange group of guests at the hotel whose lives seem to have become entwined with that of the late Ruby Keene. The centre of this group is Conway Jefferson, a rich, elderly, invalid who lost his legs in a plane crash that also claimed the lives of his wife, son and daughter. He now lives with Mark Gaskell, his daughter's widower, Adelaide Jefferson, his son's widow, and Peter Carmody, Adelaide's nine-year old son from an earlier marriage. All four members of the family are staying at the hotel together.

Conway Jefferson had become smitten by the naïve young Ruby, in what Christie describes as Cophetua syndrome. Jefferson, who has a weak heart and is not expected to live much longer, had decided to adopt Ruby as his daughter and amend his will to ensure that she would receive the bulk of his estate. Jefferson had provided his son and daughter with large sums before their deaths, and he believes that Mark and Adelaide are rich enough to require no further bequest from him. In fact this is untrue as the bulk of their fortunes have been squandered and they are far more dependent on Jefferson than he realises.

The situation becomes more complicated when the burnt-out wreck of George Bartlett's car is found, with a second murder victim inside it. This body is charred beyond recognition, but on the basis of fragments of clothing it is identified as Pamela Reeves, a sixteen year old Girl Guide who had been reported missing earlier. It soon emerges that Pamela had arranged to attend a secret "screen test" with a man whom she believed to be a Hollywood film producer, but who appears to fit the description of Basil Blake. Pamela never returned from this covert rendezvous. At this point of the novel, all the essential elements are in place. There are two bodies, one of which is so badly burnt that the possibility of a body-swap cannot be discounted. There are numerous suspects (Colonel Bantry, Basil Blake, Josie Turner, Raymond Starr, George Bartlett, Mark Gaskell and Adelaide Jefferson), several of whom are so strongly implicated that they must either have been involved in one or both of the murders, or have been deliberately framed by the true killer.

The real killers are Josie Turner and Mark Gaskell, who were secretly married. They switched Pamela Reeves and Ruby Keene's bodies around. Pamela was the one found in the library.

Major themes

In her Author's Foreword, Christie describes "the body in the library" as a cliché of detective fiction. She states that when writing her own variation on this theme, she decided that the library should be a completely conventional one while the body would be a highly improbable and sensational one. In light of these remarks, and the evidence of the novel as it is written, it can be considered a conscious parody of the genre. For the most part the novel is distinctly light-hearted in style, and even broadly comic in places, particularly in its portrayal of the idiosyncrasies of the British upper and working classes.

An unusual feature of The Body in the Library is that it has almost as many detectives as it has suspects. Although Jane Marple is the most famous character in the novel, and the person who ultimately solves the mystery, she does not fully enter the action until the half-way point of the novel. Even then she is not always the driving force of the investigation. The police are represented by Colonel Melchett and Inspector Slack of the Radfordshire force, and Superintendent Harper of Glenshire. In addition, a second "amateur detective", the retired head of Scotland Yard, Sir Henry Clithering, gets involved at the request of Conway Jefferson. Melchett, Harper and Sir Henry all play significant roles in advancing the investigation, and, through them, the reader often has access to significant information before Miss Marple does. In addition, Adelaide Jefferson's son, Peter Carmody, plays at being a detective and inadvertently provides a unique source of information.

Literary significance and reception

Maurice Willson Disher of The Times Literary Supplement was impressed in his review of 16 May 1942 when he said, "Some devoted souls may sigh for Hercule Poirot, but there are bound to be others who will be glad to find his place taken in the ‘new Agatha Christie’ by Miss Marple. What this relief signifies is that professional detectives are no match for elderly spinsters (not all so elderly), with some training in looking under the antimacassar, who are now very much in fashion. Even while making full allowance for this we find it hard not to be impressed by old-maid logic. When Miss Marple says, 'The dress was all wrong,' she is plainly observing facts hidden from the masculine eye – facts which are of a very lively interest. The Body in the Library should turn Hendon College co-educational.”

Maurice Richardson was not as impressed with Christie's efforts as usual in his 17 May 1942 review in The Observer when he concluded, "Ingenious, of course, but interest is rather diffuse and the red herrings have lost their phosphorescence."

An unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star of 21 March 1942 said, "It doesn't take long to read this one, but the two killings in it are made so mysterious that you will not want to lay the book down until the killer is caught." The reviewer concludes, "Police do a lot of probing, but it is the shrewd reasoning - intuition perhaps - of Jane Marple that finds the missing link and discloses a diabolical plot."

Robert Barnard: "Bravura performance on a classic situation. St Mary Mead regulars figure in the case, pleasantly diversified by fashionable seaside hotel guests and the film crowd. If you think what happens to the body after death is unlikely, try the more 'realistic' P.D. James' An Unsuitable Job for a Woman."

Allusions

In Chapter 8 the author gives herself a namecheck from the mouth of the young boy, Peter Carmody. Explaining that he enjoys reading detective stories, Peter says that he has the autographs of Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr and H. C. Bailey.

In Christie's Cards on the Table, published six years earlier, Anne Meredith knows Ariadne Oliver as the writer of a book called The Body In the Library.

In the first episode of the second series ("And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea") of the television series Lewis, the body of a handyman is found in the Bodleian Library. DS James Hathaway comments to DI Robbie Lewis, "You realize what we've got, don't you, sir. ... The body in the library."

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

• "The Body in the Library": The novel was first adapted for television by the BBC for the television series Miss Marple with Joan Hickson making the first of her acclaimed appearances in the role of Jane Marple. It was transmitted in three parts from 26-28 December 1984.

• In 2004, ITV adapted the novel as part of their ongoing Marple series. The version took various liberties with the plot of the novel, including changing the identity of the murderer and introducing a lesbian affair. It starred Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, James Fox as Colonel Bantry, Joanna Lumley as Dolly Bantry, Ian Richardson as Conway Jefferson and Jamie Theakston as Mark Gaskell.

Publication history

Dustjacket illustration of the UK first edition; the book was first published in the U.S.

• 1941, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), February 1942, Hardback, 245 pp
• 1941, Collins Crime Club (London), May 1942, Hardback, 160 pp
• 1946, Pocket Books (New York), Paperback, (Pocket number 341), 152 pp
• 1953, Penguin Books, Paperback, (Penguin number 924), 190 pp
• 1959, Pan Books, Paperback, 157 pp (Great Pan G221)
• 1962, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 191 pp
• 1972, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 305 pp; ISBN 0-85456-102-1
• 2005, Marple Facsimile edition (Facsimile of 1942 UK first edition), November 7, 2005, Hardcover; ISBN 0-00-720844-8

The novel was first serialised in the US in The Saturday Evening Post in seven parts from 10 May (Volume 213, Number 45) to 21 June 1941 (Volume 213, Number 51) with illustrations by Hy Rubin.

International titles

• Czech: Mrtvá v knihovně (The Dead Woman in the Library)
• German: Die Tote in der Bibliothek (The Body in the Library), special edition in 2004: Das Rätsel der Tänzerin (The Riddle about the Dancing Girl)

External links

• The Body in the Library at the official Agatha Christie website
• The Body in the Library (1984) at IMDb
• Marple: The Body in the Library (2004) at IMDb
• The Body in the Library at Novels Corner