<\/p>\n
CAMBRIDGE: Agatha Christie\u2019s 1930s typewriter and the manuscript of her final Hercule Poirot novel, which was kept for decades in a bank vault, were displayed on Saturday in a new exhibition delving into the \u201cdark stuff\u201d at the heart of crime fiction.<\/p>\n
The cover of the faded and fragile manuscript has the book\u2019s title \u201cCurtain<\/em>\u201d written in capital letters in Christie\u2019s own hand along with her name and address \u2014 Greenway House in Devon, southwest England \u2014 in spidery longhand.<\/p>\n \u201cShe wrote it as a nest egg for her daughter Rosalind, \u2018something to cheer you up when you come back from the funeral\u2019,\u201d said crime novelist Nicola Upson, curator of the \u201cMurder by the Book\u201d exhibition at Cambridge University Library in central England.<\/p>\n The last Poirot mystery, in which Christie\u2019s fabled Belgian detective dies, was written in the early 1940s during World War II in case she did not survive. At the time \u201cnothing was guaranteed\u201d, Upson said. In fact Christie went on to write many more Poirot novels before she died in 1976. But with the final instalment already written, fears Poirot\u2019s demise might be leaked dictated that the manuscript be kept under lock and key.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Poirot\u2019s last case and she wanted that to come out after her own death and for the royalties from it to benefit her daughter,\u201d said Upson. Poirot\u2019s fate, when it was finally revealed in 1975, was seen as so culturally significant it was marked by a front page obituary in the New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CAMBRIDGE: Agatha Christie\u2019s 1930s typewriter and the manuscript of her final Hercule Poirot novel, which was kept for decades in a bank vault, were displayed on Saturday in a new exhibition delving into the \u201cdark stuff\u201d at the heart of crime fiction. The cover of the faded and fragile manuscript has the book\u2019s title \u201cCurtain\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/03\/65ff6a9fbc1f7.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t