Publication History
- 1924, John Lane (The Bodley Head), August 22, 1924, Hardcover, 312 pp
- 1924, Dodd Mead and Company (New York), 1924, Hardcover, 275 pp
- 1949, Dell Books (New York), 1949, Paperback, (Dell number 319 ), 223 pp
- 1953, Pan Books, 1953, Paperback, (Pan number 250), 190 pp
- 1958, Pan Books, 1958, Paperback, (Great Pan G176)
- 1978, Panther Books (London), 1978, 192 pp, ISBN 0-586-04516-3
- 1984, Ulverscroft Large Print Edition, Hardcover, ISBN 0-7089-1125-0
- 1988, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), 1988, Paperback, 240 pp, ISBN 0-00-617475-2
- 2007, Facsimile of 1924 UK first edition (HarperCollins), November 5, 2007, Hardcover, 312 pp, ISBN 0-00-726518-2
Following completion in late 1923 The Man in the Brown Suit was first serialised in the London Evening News under the title Anne the Adventurous. It ran in fifty instalments from Thursday, November 29, 1923 to Monday, January 28, 1924. There were slight amendments to the text, either to make sense of the openings of an instalment (e.g. changing "She then..." to "Anne then..."), or omitting small sentences or words. The main change was in the chapter division. The published book has thirty-six chapters whereas the serialisation has only twenty-eight.
In her 1977 Autobiography Christie makes a slight mistake with the name of the serialisation and refers to it as Anna the Adventuress (possibly confusing it with the 1904 book of the same name by E. Phillips Oppenheim). Irrespective of this mistake, the change from her preferred title was not of her choosing and the newspaper's choice was one that she considered to be "as silly a title as I have ever heard". She raised no objections however as the Evening News were paying her £500 (£21,141 in current terms) for the serial rights which she and her family considered an enormous sum. At Archie's suggestion, she used the money to purchase a grey, bottle-nosed Morris Cowley. She later stated that acquiring her own car ranked with dining at Buckingham Palace as one of the two most exciting incidents in her life.
Christie was less pleased with the dustjacket of the book, complaining to the Bodley Head that the illustration by the unnamed artist looked as if the incident at the Tube Station depicted was set in "mediaeval times" when she wanted something "more clear, definite and modern". The Bodley Head were anxious to sign a new contract with Christie, now recognising her potential, but she wanted to move on, feeling that "they had not treated a young author fairly".
The US serialisation was in the Blue Book magazine in three instalments from September (Volume 39, Issue 5) to November 1924 (Volume 40, Issue 1) with each issue containing an uncredited illustration.
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