The Golden Ball and Other Stories [Paperback]

Agatha Christie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1986

Thirteen of the famous mystery writer's earliest short works include the lighthearted and suspenseful ""The Listerdale Mystery,"" the supernatural ""The Hound of Death,"" and the romantic ""Magnolia Blossom."" Reissue.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (November 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425099229
• ISBN-13: 978-0425099223
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,863,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Agatha Christie was born in 1890 and created the detective Hercule Poirot in her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). She achieved wide popularity with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and produced a total of eighty novels and short-story collections over six decades.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A mix of fantasy/SF fiction and non-standard adventures, April 21, 2002

By 

Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Golden Ball and Other Stories (Paperback)

A collection of 15 short stories, none of which feature any of Christie's recurring characters, not even the small fry like Ariadne Oliver. Although the code of ettiquette that she and her fellow writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers followed for mysteries forbade any supernatural elements, Christie could and did occasionally dabble in such stories outside the mystery format. Several of the stories here have such elements; specifically, those from THE HOUND OF DEATH AND OTHER STORIES. Others are more conventional; several of these feature men who 'seize the golden ball of opportunity' and get something out of their adventures, if only some self-respect. They are sorted by the original publication dates in magazines or story collections.

"The Hound of Death", "The Gipsy", "The Lamp", "The Strange Case of Sir Andrew Carmichael", and "The Call of Wings" are all taken from an earlier collection, THE HOUND OF DEATH AND OTHER STORIES (see). Properly speaking, by the way, "The Strange Case of Sir Andrew Carmichael" is really "The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael" - it isn't often that the *title* of a story is the subject of a widespread printer's error.

"The Girl in the Train", "Jane in Search of a Job", "The Manhood of Edward Robinson", "The Listerdale Mystery", "The Rajah's Emerald", "Swan Song", "A Fruitful Sunday" - taken from an earlier collection, THE LISTERDALE MYSTERY (see its reviews for details of each). "The Girl on the Train" is essentially similar to "The Golden Ball", although the settings differ. "Jane in Search of a Job" and "The Listerdale Mystery" each involve a woman - one young, one middle-aged - in desperate financial straits answering an advertisement that's too good to be true. "The Manhood of Edward Robinson" and "The Rajah's Emerald" each involve a young man with a girlfriend who's tiresome about money (one is bossy and prudent, the other likes to live higher than her boyfriend can afford) who accidentally gets hold of stolen gemstones and must think quickly to avoid wrongful arrest. "A Fruitful Sunday" starts out on a similar tack, but with a sympathetic girlfriend who *isn't* keen on giving the stones back. "Swan Song", the only story not featuring someone who's struggling, concerns a soprano with a fiendish 'temperament' and her final, definitive performance of _Tosca_.

"Magnolia Blossom" (March 1926) Theodora Darrell and Vincent Easton had fallen in love under the branches of the magnolia tree at her home in London, and now, 2 weeks later, she's prepared to run away with him to his home in the Transvaal - until she sees a newspaper account of the collapse of her husband's firm. She can't leave, today of all days. Then Richard Darrell (who hasn't got a clue) asks her to persuade a man into giving her the evidence of his own criminal conduct: Vincent Easton.

"The Golden Ball" (1934) Nothing to do with the fairy tale of the same name. George Dundas, like George Rowland (see above) has just been fired by his uncle, for taking an unscheduled day off in the middle of the week, and been read a lecture about 'seizing the golden ball of opportunity'. When he encounters society beauty Mary Montressor on the street outside the office, he's in a mood to take whatever adventure comes to him...

"Next to a Dog" - Joyce, left widowed by a beloved husband whose only flaw was that he gambled, is too proud to sponge, but can't take just any kind of job, because she's still got someone to care for: her beloved, half-blind old terrier, Terry, a gift from her late husband. Governesses and companions can't have such dogs; what can she do to keep their heads above water?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars pure escapism, May 13, 2001

By 

Christina P. Branson "Strixaluco" (Fort Collins) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Golden Ball and Other Stories (Paperback)

This is early Christie and definitely a product of its time. Much more personal than her regular mystery stories, these exude '20s style and mysticism. The first half of the book seems devoted to young people and adventure, with a great deal of attention to the recurring motif of the car representing freedom and the jewels imbuing their wearers with special traits.

In the second half, Christie delves deeper and deeper into the occult, going from Atlantis theories to reincarnation to "the gift" to metamorphosis to the ghostly sobbing of dead children. Even as I reject the pushiness of the occult aspects of these stories, I am thoroughly entertained by Christie's writing style. Her dialogue is simply enchanting, and even though I recognize the flaws in this collection, I find myself often drawn to re-reading it to escape into a whole different world.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Christie leftovers, January 17, 2008

By 

Patrick W. Crabtree "The Old Grottomaster" (Lucasville, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Golden Ball and Other Stories (Mass Market Paperback)

Agatha Christie wrote some astonishing and superb mystery books -- this is not one of them.

Here we have a compendium of "Christie Crumbs," short pieces which never blossomed into larger mystery stories. Herein, you'll find elements of and thoughts from Christie's larger works but none of them seem to manifest into anything significant. A number of the endings just sort of hang you out, reminiscent of some of the stories that you might encounter in "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine," only not so entertaining as those great little, well-edited tales.

This book would be okay to take along for the morning bus ride or to the doctor's office. But unless you are a totally devoted Christie fan and must read everything that she wrote, I'd take a pass on this one and go with one of her more renowned works.