Mercury Mystery was an imprint of digest-sized paperback novels in pulp magazine format first published by Lawrence Spivak in 1937 and which ran until 1958. First known as American Mercury Book, then Mercury Book and finally (by the time the first Agatha Christie title was issued) Mercury Mystery. The series has, as its stablemates from the same publisher other imprints, the Bestseller Mystery series and the Jonathan Press Mystery series. The issues typically consisted of an abridged version of popular mystery titles running for about 126 pages. As stated by the publisher on the copyright page, "Mercury Mysteries are chosen from the hundreds of mysteries published every year--for their pace, literary quality and readability. Sometimes they are reprinted in full, but more often they are cut to speed up the story - always, of course, with the permission of the author or his Publisher." At other times, this publisher's note will state that "the stories were not cut". Included in its run are several Agatha Christie novels and novellas.
Agatha Christie titles in the Mercury Mystery series[]
Note that the books themselves did not contain publication dates. The dates have been obtained from resources maintained by other researchers of this genre.[1]
| Year | Issue No. | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1941 | 41 | Poirot Loses a Client | |
| 1941 | 43 | The Murder at the Vicarage | |
| 1941 | 46 | The Incredible Theft | Also contains Murder in the Mews and Triangle at Rhodes. Publisher's note says that the stories were not cut. This volume has three of the four stories in Murder in the Mews and Other Stories. The fourth, Dead Man's Mirror was used in Bestseller Mystery #18.[2] |
| 1942 | 50 | Murder in Mesopotamia | |
| 1942 | 53 | Cards on the Table | |
| 1942 | 59 | Thirteen at Dinner | |
| 1943 | 66 | Death on the Nile | |
| 1943 | 69 | The Secret of Chimneys | |
| 1945 | 84 | The Moving Finger | |
| 1946 | 100 | Murder on the Links |
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ See in particular: Digest Index.
- ↑ According to the Author Index pdf available from Kenneth Johnson's Digest Index.
External links[]
- Kennth Johnson's The Digest Index. Among other things, this resource has a subpage with comprehensive table of cover thumbnails here.