Collins was unmoved: the cover reappeared on a recent hardback edition. In a letter dated 9 April 1947, she complained: “The wrapper design for Hercules has occasioned the most ribald and obscene remarks and suggestions from my family – All I can say is – Try again!!” (sic). Most notably, she complained about a pugnacious-looking Pekingese on the jacket of The Labours of Hercules, which caused much mirth in the Christie household. Though well into her stride with Poirot by the late 1940s and already hailed as “ the Queen of Crime”, her opinion of the covers for her books was not always heeded.
It was the start of a long correspondence that lasted until Christie’s death in January 1976. The correspondence reveals a close personal bond between the Miss Marple author and her publisher Billy Collins, who had wooed her to the publishing house in 1924 for her breakout novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Christie replied: “Nobody likes, possibly, perhaps, because they don’t seem to have been touched up at all? All lines and wrinkles – and dash it all, I’m not 70 – not yet 60.” “Frankly, Agatha,” he had announced after seeing her latest publicity image, “that photo makes you look about 70”. But it appears what stung the then 59-year-old more than the fan letters was a comment from theatre producer Bertie Meyer, who was staging an adaption of Murder at the Vicarage. “I’ve had letters now from different fans expressing surprise that I am ‘such an old lady’,” she complained in October 1949.
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