The Murder of Roger Ackroyd BY Agatha Christie is the new book we have brought out in Braille. It was first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons in June 1926.
About the Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd begins at Dr. Sheppard’s breakfast table. He opens the curtain of this immense drama as the narrator or ancor. We soon see him in the role of an investigator, the role of an assistant to M. Poirot. Poirot has come to King’s Abbot to enjoy his retired life as a stranger and grow vegetable marrows.
The scene opens with the news of Mrs. Ferrars’s death M. Poirot is just curious and nothing else. The murder of Roger Ackroyd, the title event of the novel, takes place in the fifth chapter and Poirot comes into the scene as a detective. It appears from the data we receive from Poirot and Inspector Raglan that Ralph Paton is the main suspect. The mystery keeps building up and the reader can hardly doubt Dr. Sheppard’s part in the plot. He is not just the narrator. He is a kind of hero, the protagonist, the perpetrator of the crime. We have read other stories related by the criminal himself. But this story is unique – the culprit is the investigator too. Dr. Sheppard is assigned the job of an assistant by Poirot, a job often performed by his old friend Hastings. Like Hastings, Dr. Sheppard keeps notes of the investigation, without a different purpose though. He “meant it to be published some day as the history of one of Poirot’s failures”, as he admits in his Apologia, the final chapter of the novel.
Final two lines of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd have a dramatic effect. The penultimate line, “So let it be Veronal”, may remind some readers of Hamlet’s words, “The rest is silence.” The last line sums up Dr. Sheppard’s confession or the novel, “But I wish Hercule Poirot had never retired from work and come here to grow vegetable marrows.”
About Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie (September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976)is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. You may read Miss Marple’s Final Cases, a collection of short stories in Braille from our press.
The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. In 1971 she achieved one of Britainâ’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire.
Availability
Complete in four Braille volumes, this book will cost INR 355. Students may collect it for just INR :40. Visit our online list of Braille books for information on purchase details and other titles.