AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTABLE: “NEMESIS” Companion Book Club Edition 1972

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Seller: rolilb_90 ✉️ (782) 100%, Location: Portarlington, VIC, AU, Ships to: AU, Item: 354057455940 AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTABLE: “NEMESIS” Companion Book Club Edition 1972.

AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTABLE: “NEMISIS” Companion Book Club Edition 1972.

A lovely little maroon leatherette book from the Companion Book Club. The original book was printed in 1971. This book was printed in 1972. This book is in good condition. Minor shelving marks on the leatherette covered. The outer spine is straight with minor bumper to the crown and lower edge. Pages of the text block are clean and clear with some faint shadowing to page edges. Page edges are red.

A great copy of this crime mystery by Agatha Christie.

Will send Australian Standard Post with Tracking

Will bubble wrap to ensure a safe delivery


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“Nemesis (Christie novel)

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For other novels, see Nemesis (disambiguation) § Literature.

Nemesis

Marplenemesis.jpg

Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition

Author Agatha Christie

Cover artist Unknown

Country United Kingdom

Language English

Genre Crime novel

Published November 1971 Collins Crime Club (UK)

1971 Dodd, Mead and Company (US)

Media type Print (hardback & paperback)

Pages 256 (first edition, hardcover)

ISBN 0-00-231563-7

OCLC 2656647

Dewey Decimal 823/.9/12

LC Class PR6005.H66 N4 1971b

Preceded by Passenger to Frankfurt

Followed by The Golden Ball and Other Stories

Nemesis is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie (1890–1976) and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1971[1] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year.[2][3] The UK edition retailed at £1.50[1] and the US edition at $6.95.[3] It was the last Miss Marple novel the author wrote, although Sleeping Murder was the last Miss Marple novel to be published.


Miss Marple first encounters Jason Rafiel in A Caribbean Mystery, where they solve a mystery. In his will, Rafiel leaves another mystery for Miss Marple to solve.


Nemesis received generally positive reviews at the time of publication. It was described as "astonishingly fresh"[4] with a "devilish fine" confrontation and overall was "quite worthy of the Picasso of the detective story".[5] It is a "first-rate story" in a "traditional detective novel".[6] The novel is "readable and ingenious" and "Miss Christie remains unflagging" at age 80.[7] A later review by Barnard is the only negative note, stating "The garden paths we are led up are neither enticing nor profitable," and Barnard rates Christie's later novels generally not as good as earlier ones.[8]


Recent analyses of the plot and characters in this novel find homosexual themes,[9] but the character "Miss Marple seems to view the passionate friendship between women as just a phase in their life", which was "a conventional view, held by people of Marple's generation and social class.[10]



Contents

1 Plot summary

2 Characters

3 Literary significance and reception

4 Homosexual themes

5 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

5.1 Television

5.1.1 BBC adaptation

5.1.2 ITV adaptation

5.1.3 Korean adaptation

5.2 Radio

6 Publication history

7 References

8 Bibliography

9 External links

Plot summary[edit]

Miss Marple receives a letter from the solicitors of the recently deceased Jason Rafiel, a millionaire whom she had met during a holiday on which she had encountered a murder, which asks her to look into an unspecified crime; if she succeeds in solving the crime, she will inherit £20,000. Rafiel has left her few clues. She begins by joining a tour of famous British houses and gardens with fifteen other people, arranged by Mr Rafiel prior to his death. Elizabeth Temple is the retired school headmistress who relates the story of Verity, who was engaged to Rafiel's ne'er-do-well son, Michael, but the marriage did not happen. Another member of the tour group, Miss Cooke, is a woman she had met briefly in St Mary Mead.


Her next clue comes from Lavinia Glynne; Rafiel had written to Mrs Glynne and her two sisters before his death, suggesting Miss Marple spend the most physically challenging few days of the tour with them at the Old Manor House. Miss Marple accepts Lavinia's invitation. She then meets Lavinia's spinster sisters, Clotilde and Anthea Bradbury-Scott. Touring the grounds, Miss Marple notices a creeping plant about to bloom, polygonum baldschuanicum covering the wreck of the greenhouse. On talking with the servant, Miss Marple learns Verity joined the family after both her parents died, becoming quite attached to Clotilde. Verity is dead now, brutally murdered. Michael Rafiel is in prison.


On the morning of her return to her party, Miss Marple learns Miss Temple had been injured by a rockslide during the previous day's hike, and was lying in a coma in hospital. The group stays over an extra night to wait for news from the tour guide about Miss Temple's health. Professor Wanstead, a pathologist and psychologist interested in criminal brains, had been instructed by Mr Rafiel to go on the tour. He had examined Michael Rafiel at the request of the head of the prison where Michael was incarcerated; he came to the conclusion Michael was not capable of murder. He tells Miss Marple how distant Michael's father seemed, yet wanting justice. He mentions a missing young local woman, Nora Broad, and he fears she will be found murdered. Wanstead takes Miss Marple to see Miss Temple; in a moment of consciousness, Miss Temple had asked for Miss Marple. Miss Temple wakes long enough to tell Miss Marple to "search for Verity Hunt", and dies that night. The three sisters extend their invitation to Miss Marple when she decides not to return to the tour, and she promptly accepts. That night, Mrs Glynne tells the story of Verity in their household to Miss Marple.


After the inquiry into Miss Temple's death, Miss Marple is visited by Archdeacon Brabazon, a friend of Miss Temple. He tells Miss Marple he was going to marry Verity Hunt and Michael Rafiel in a secret ceremony. While he disapproved of the secrecy and worried about their prospects, he agreed to marry them because he could see they were in love. He was most surprised when neither turned up for the wedding, nor sent a note. Miss Marple stays another night with the three sisters when the tour moves on. Professor Wanstead travels to London by train on an errand for Miss Marple. Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke decide they will visit a nearby church. Later that evening, Miss Marple talks with the sisters about what she thinks may have happened and, while they are doing so, Miss Barrow and Miss Cooke appear, to talk to Miss Marple. They stay for a time and are then invited back for coffee that evening.


As they talk about Miss Temple, Miss Marple suggests, albeit dissembling, Joanna Crawford and Emlyn Price (two of those on the tour) pushed the boulder, and their alibis are mere fabrication. As they get ready to leave, Miss Cooke suggests the coffee would not suit Miss Marple, as it will keep her up all night. Clotilde then offers some warm milk. The two ladies soon depart, although each returns to retrieve a forgotten item. At three o'clock in the morning, Clotilde enters Miss Marple's room, surprised when Miss Marple turns on the light. Miss Marple tells her she did not drink the milk. Clotilde offers to warm it up, but Miss Marple tells her she still would not drink it because she knows Clotilde killed Verity Hunt and buried her body in the wreck of the greenhouse, because she could not bear Verity leaving her for someone else. She also knows Clotilde brutally murdered Nora Broad to (mis)identify her body as Verity's and thus throw suspicion on Michael Rafiel. Clotilde murdered Miss Temple as well. As Clotilde advances toward her, Miss Marple blows on a whistle, which brings Miss Cooke and Miss Barrow to her defence — they are bodyguards employed by Mr Rafiel to protect Miss Marple. Clotilde drinks the milk herself, which is poisoned. Miss Marple tells the story to the Home Secretary, including that Verity is buried on the property of the Bradbury-Scotts. Michael Rafiel is set free. Miss Marple collects her inheritance, confident she completed the task given her.


Characters[edit]

Miss Marple: Single woman who is getting frail with age, a natural detective. She takes a request from Jason Rafiel, with little initial information, to solve an unnamed crime for him.

Jason Rafiel: Millionaire, recently deceased, who first met Miss Marple in A Caribbean Mystery.

Michael Rafiel: Son of Jason, still a suspect of murder; Jason considers his son a ne'er do well.

Esther Walters: Mr Rafiel's secretary, who first met Miss Marple in A Caribbean Mystery.

Verity Hunt: Engaged to Michael Rafiel, but the marriage never happens, and she was found murdered, identified by Clotilde Bradbury-Scott several years earlier.

Miss Elizabeth Temple: Retired headmistress of the school that Verity Hunt attended, who shares the story of Verity Hunt's engagement with Miss Marple, as they both take the tour of famous houses and gardens. She is injured by a rock slide while Miss Marple takes her day of rest, and dies the next day.

Miss Cooke: Young woman in the tour group, who Miss Marple recalls seeing near her home before the tour; later revealed to be sent on the tour by Jason Rafiel, to aid and protect Miss Marple.

Miss Barrow: One of the fifteen on the tour with Miss Marple, she appears with Miss Cooke. She is later revealed to be sent on the tour by Jason Rafiel to aid and protect Miss Marple, working with Miss Cooke

Lavinia Glynne: A widow, and one of the three sisters Bradbury-Scott, who live along the tour route, near the point where the garden to be toured is a taxing walk for a frail woman; the sisters were contacted by Jason Rafiel to invite Miss Marple to stay with them until the tour would move on.

Clotilde Bradbury-Scott: Unmarried elder sister of Lavinia who became attached to Verity Hunt, sent to live with them when her parents died.

Anthea Bradbury-Scott: Unmarried younger sister of Lavinia and Clotilde.

Professor Wanstead: One of the fifteen people on the tour with Miss Marple, also at Jason Rafiel's invitation. He is a psychiatrist who examined Michael Rafiel. Wanstead judges Michael as incapable of murder.

Archdeacon Brabazon: A friend of Miss Temple who tells Miss Marple that he had agreed to officiate at the secret marriage of Michael and Verity. That is an unusual procedure for him, a secret marriage, but he judged them to be truly in love with each other.

Joanna Crawford: Young woman on the tour with her aunt.

Emlyn Price: Young man on the tour.

Nora Broad: Local girl in the area of the Bradbury-Scott home whose body is disfigured making identification difficult.

Literary significance and reception[edit]

Matthew Coady in The Guardian of 4 November 1971 concluded, "Not a Christie classic but the old hand is astonishingly fresh and the mixture as relaxing as a hot bath."[4]


Maurice Richardson in The Observer of 31 October 1971 said of Miss Marple in this story, "The showdown when, alone in bed, quite defenceless with not even a knitting-needle, she is confronted by a brawny great fiend of a butch, is devilish fine. Not one of her best, perhaps, but remarkably inventive, quite worthy of the Picasso of the detective story."[5]


The Daily Mirror of 28 October 1971 said, "With this first-rate story Dame Agatha triumphantly returns to the traditional detective novel after a spell of psychological suspense."[6]


Robert Weaver in the Toronto Daily Star of 4 December 1971 said, "Christie richly deserves the loyalty offered up to her by devotees of the traditional mystery. She is readable and ingenious, and in Nemesis she has going for her the amateur lady sleuth Miss Jane Marple deep in a murder case as she tries to carry out a request that comes in effect from beyond the grave. Beyond 80 Miss Christie remains unflagging."[7]


Robert Barnard commented about the plot that "Miss Marple is sent on a tour of stately gardens by Mr Rafiel." His generally negative view of the novel was tersely expressed in one sentence: "The garden paths we are led up are neither enticing nor profitable. All the usual strictures about late Christie apply.”


  • Condition: Good
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Publisher: The Companion BOOK Club
  • Subject: Literature & Fiction
  • Modified Item: No
  • Original/Facsimile: Original
  • Year Printed: 1972
  • Language: English
  • Illustrator: NA
  • Special Attributes: Leatherette Cover, Early Edition
  • Author: Agatha Christie
  • Region: United Kingdom
  • Character Family: NEMESIS
  • Sub-Subject: Crime And Justice

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