Agatha Christie Goes Electronic; Agatha Christie Limited Selects HarperCollins Imprint PerfectBound As Worldwide E-Book Publisher.Business Editors LONDON & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 16, 2003 HarperCollins Publishers and Agatha Christie Limited, a Chorion Chorion The outermost of the several extraembryonic membranes in amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) enclosing the embryo and all of its other membranes. company, today announced a program for the publication in e-book format of 85 works by Agatha Christie -- the world's bestselling author. The program will include Agatha Christie's classic mysteries that feature Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, and such genre-defining crime titles as And Then There Were None. The five titles available for sale today to consumers -- directly from e-book retailers worldwide (see list below) and from PerfectBound's retail websites (as below) -- are: -- The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the first Hercule Poirot mystery, and Agatha Christie's first novel; -- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the Poirot mystery whose solution created an international sensation and that is widely regarded as Agatha Christie's masterpiece; -- The Murder at the Vicarage, the first Miss Marple mystery; -- The Body in the Library, the hugely popular Marple mystery; -- and They Came to Baghdad They Came to Baghdad is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March 1951 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. , a less-well-known but electrifying e·lec·tri·fy tr.v. e·lec·tri·fied, e·lec·tri·fy·ing, e·lec·tri·fies 1. To produce electric charge on or in (a conductor). 2. a. and apropos spy thriller in which a young heroine must take on a Baghdad-based conspiracy that threatens world peace. Each title contains special e-book features that are not available in any print edition. They Came to Baghdad, for example, contains the lengthy essay 'Agatha Christie in Baghdad,' the author's own account -- taken from her autobiography -- of her many years in Baghdad and the Middle East as tourist, occasional archaeologist and resident, and where she wrote some of her most important works. In addition, a FREE e-book sampler, the Agatha Christie E-Reader, containing excerpts from Poirot and Marple mysteries, and from They Came to Baghdad, is also available to readers today. It is the first of two such FREE e-readers (the second will be published in January), and may be downloaded directly from PerfectBound's retail websites and from participating retailers -- as listed below. Mathew Prichard, Agatha Christie's grandson and Chairman of Agatha Christie Ltd, a subsidiary of brand creation and management company Chorion plc said, 'We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with our longtime publishing partner HarperCollins in bringing the classic works of Agatha Christie to this exciting and important new reading format. The enduring popularity of Agatha Christie's books in print and audio formats are testimony that she is an author for the ages; the publication of her works in electronic format certifies that she is an author for the twenty-first century.' 'It is very gratifying to me that after publishing Agatha Christie in the Commonwealth for more than 75 years, HarperCollins will now introduce her works to a global readership in e-book format,' said Jane Friedman, President and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of HarperCollins Publishers worldwide. 'PerfectBound has the unique ability to publish Christie's timeless classics, enhanced with special features to attract first-time readers and delight those who return to Christie again and again. There can be no stronger signal of the future of e-books than Chorion's commitment of its most important author to this major project.' PerfectBound plans to publish 5-6 Christie titles approximately every six weeks. The next round of titles, publishing on 28 October, is: Murder on the Orient Express Murder on the Orient Express is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in January 1934, in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company and later in the same year under the title of Murder in the Calais Coach. , Murder in Mesopotamia Murder in Mesopotamia is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in July 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence. , Hallowe'en Party (all featuring Hercule Poirot); At Bertram's Hotel At Bertram's Hotel is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 15 1965 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. It features the detective Miss Marple. (Miss Marple); and Sparkling Cyanide, which has been adapted with a modern-day setting by Company Pictures for television broadcast later this year. Rounding out 2003 will be the publication, on 25 November, of Miss Marple's A Murder Is Announced A Murder is Announced is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in June 1950 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. It features her detective Miss Marple. and four Poirots: Lord Edgware Dies Lord Edgware Dies is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in September 1933 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year under the title of Thirteen at Dinner. ; The ABC ABC in full American Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. television network. It began when the expanding national radio network NBC split into the separate Red and Blue networks in 1928. Murders; Cards on the Table Cards on the Table is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence. ; and Hercule Poirot's Christmas Hercule Poirot's Christmas is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on December 19, 1938 (although the first edition is copyright dated 1939). It retailed at seven shillings and sixpence. . Agatha Christie is the author of over 100 works, most famously her crime novels featuring Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Her books have sold two billion copies worldwide; she is outsold out·sold v. Past tense and past participle of outsell. only by the Bible and Shakespeare. One of the twentieth century's most distinctive and enduring publishing partnerships commenced in 1926 when William Collins published Agatha Christie's masterpiece, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Most of Mrs Christie's works have been dramatised for television and/or cinema, notably Murder on the Orient Express in 1974. Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap is the longest-running play in history -- it opened in 1952 and is performed to this day at St Martin's Theatre St Martin's Theatre is a West End theatre, located in West Street, near Charing Cross Road, in the London Borough of Camden. It was designed as one of a pair of theatres with the Ambassadors Theatre by W.G.R. in the West End. Agatha Christie was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1971. She died in 1976, since when a number of her books have been published, including Black Coffee and other of her plays novelised by Charles Osborne, Mrs Christie's biographer. The official Agatha Christie website is http://www.agathachristie.com. PerfectBound is the e-book imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Established in February of 2001, it remains the only global e-book publisher, with distinctive publishing programs in Australia and New Zealand; Canada; and the UK; it is headquartered in New York. PerfectBound publishes across the rich diversity of HarperCollins titles and electronically reprints the works of other publishers. It has distinguished itself as an e-book publisher by including in many of its titles special features that exercise fully the e-book format and that are otherwise unavailable in print editions. PerfectBound gives away free e-book excerpts and e-book samplers, including the Agatha Christie E-Reader, at its four retail websites: U.S.: http://www.perfectbound.com/; UK: http://uk.perfectbound.com/; Canada: http://ca.perfectbound.com/; Australia & New Zealand: http://au.perfectbound.com/ Global retailers selling Agatha Christie's e-books and other PerfectBound titles are: U.S.: www.academicmaterials.com; www.amazon.com/ebooks; www.cyberread.com; www.ebooks.com; ebooks.efollett.com; www.fictionwise.com; www.netlibrary.com; ebooks.officemax.com; ebooks.omniread.net; www.palmdigitalmedia.com; www.powells.com/ebookstore/ebooks.html; www.perfectbound.com; digitalbookstore.shopping.yahoo.com; UK: www.amazon.co.uk/ebooks; www.skoobe.biz; www.swotebooks.co.uk; uk.perfectbound.com; ebooks.whsmith.co.uk; Canada: www.perfectbound.ca; www.campusebookstore.com; Australia: http://au.perfectbound.com/ Chorion is a brand creation and management business. The Chorion Portfolio includes the estates of Enid Blyton; Agatha Christie; Georges Simenon; and also Margery Allingham; Edmund Crispin; and Nicolas Freeling; as well as the rights to certain of the works of Robert Bolt: http://www.chorion.co.uk HarperCollins is one of the leading English-language publishers in the world and is a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange : NWS, NWS.A; ASX ASX See: Australian Stock Exchange : NCP, NCPDP NCPDP National Council for Prescription Drug Programs ). Headquartered in New York, the company has publishing groups in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australasia. Its publishing groups include the HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children's Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada, HarperCollins Australia/New Zealand, and HarperCollins India. You can visit HarperCollins Publishers at http://www.harpercollins.co.uk and http://www.harpercollins.com. |
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