The twentieth-century literary critic Edmund Wilson chided Agatha Christie for her “mawkishness and banality” and declared her work “literally impossible to read.” Even if this were so, that Agatha Christie’s books were mere trash of no intellectual substance whatever, the fact that they were (and are) of such worldwide appeal might be worth investigating. How is it that books whose action takes place in a social milieu so completely alien to that of the vast majority of mankind were nevertheless able to capture their imagination? Does this not suggest some skill on the part of the author? Agatha Christie and the Metaphysics of Murder investigates the philosophy behind the Queen of Crime’s bestselling books, arriving at conclusions that will surprise readers who might dismiss them as lightweight fluff.
Free shipping on all orders over $40.
Agatha Christie and the Metaphysics of Murder
Also Purchase as e-Book
Publication Details
Paperback: 168
ISBN: 9781641775137
Available: 05/19/2026
- Media: Request a Review Copy
- Academia: Request an Exam Copy
About the Author
Theodore Dalrymple is a retired physician and psychiatrist. He is a contributing editor of City Journal and frequent contributor to the London Spectator, The New Criterion, and other leading magazines and newspapers.
Related Titles
A founding father of the American conservative movement, Russell Kirk (1918–94) was also a renowned and bestselling writer of fiction. Kirk’s focus was the ghost story, or “ghostly tale” – a “decayed art” of which he considered himself a “last remaining master.” Old House of Fear, Kirk’s first novel, revealed this mastery at work.
Based on 30 years of his award-winning teaching of writing, Dr. Gregory Roper shows how you can use the nearly-forgotten ancient technique of Stasis Theory to build better, cleaner, more persuasive prose.
- Read More
- Coming Soon
Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Hannah Arendt, Norman Mailer, and Lillian Hellman—among the other things these writers and intellectuals all had in common is Norman Podhoretz. With them Podhoretz was part of “The Family,” as the core group of New York intellectuals of the 50s and 60s came to be known.
It is one of the curiosities of history that the most remarkable novel about Jews and Judaism, predicting the establishment of the Jewish state, should have been written in 1876 by a non-Jew – a Victorian woman and a formidable intellectual, who is generally regarded as one of the greatest of English novelists.
In this brief but highly engaging book, Joseph Epstein argues for the primacy of fiction, and specifically of the novel, among all intellectual endeavors that seek to describe the behavior of human beings.
Perhaps the best book is an empty one. This exquisite notebook is the perfect canvas for notes, jokes, addresses, quotations, transactions, and equations–or for use as your personal diary.
- Read More
- Coming Soon
