Publication History
- 1938, Collins Crime Club (London), May 2, 1938, Hardback, 256 pp
- 1938, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1938, Hardback, 301 pp
- 1946, Dell Books, Paperback, (Dell number 105 ), 192 pp
- 1948, Penguin Books, Paperback, (Penguin number 682), 206 pp
- 1957, Pan Books, Paperback, 159 pp (Pan number 419)
- 1960, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 159 pp
- 1975, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, 334 pp ISBN 0-85456-366-0
The first true publication of Appointment with Death occurred in the US with a nine-part serialisation in Collier's Weekly from August 28 (Volume 100, Number 9) to October 23, 1937 (Volume 100, Number 17) with illustrations by Mario Cooper.
The UK serialisation was in twenty-eight parts in the Daily Mail from Wednesday, January 19 to Saturday, February 19, 1938 under the title of A Date with Death. Fifteen of the instalments contained illustrations by J. Abbey (Joseph van Abbé, brother of Salomon van Abbé). This version did not contain any chapter divisions and omitted various small paragraphs such as the quote in Part I, Chapter twelve from Dr. Gerard which is taken from Book IV of Ecclesiastes. The political argument between Lady Westholme and Dr. Gerard in chapter ten about the League of Nations was also deleted. Finally, the epilogue did not appear in the serialisation.
Four days before the first instalment appeared, in the edition dated Saturday, January 15, a piece specially written by Christie as an introduction to the serialisation appeared in the Daily Mail in which she charted the creation of Poirot and expressed her feelings about him in the famous quote, "There have been moments when I have felt: 'Why-why-why did I ever invent this detestable, bombastic, tiresome little creature!' "
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