Mark Aldridge

The Sunday Times, 13th of February 1949, there was a diary column by Atticus, which had a photograph of a very happy Agatha Christie, who probably wasn't very happy when she heard about it.

But the column claimed firstly, incorrectly, that The Rose and the Yew Tree was the first novel by Mary Westmacott, but also said Mary Westmacott is the pseudonym chosen by Miss Christie for her first non-detective story.

Now, the next week, Atticus corrected... Sorry, we need Kemper's actor, Claxton, don't we?

Sorry, carry on.

No, we don't.

The next week, Atticus corrected the fact that I actually realised that Rosie Utrecht wasn't the first Mary Westmacott.

Should have listened to the podcast.

Well, shouldn't everyone?

but did say that this makes it all the more amusing that more than one reviewer has greeted The Rose and the Yew Tree as the work of a promising newcomer.

Hmm, I'm not sure that's actually true, but okay.

Christie was very upset by the news.

She was in Baghdad at the time, actually, but Rosalind saw it and wrote to Edmund Cork, so Christie's agent, to try and find out what had happened, how it had been discovered.

Cork said that he was shocked, but it wasn't anyone at the publisher.

It wasn't somebody...

playing slip at a party, for example, as may have happened with some other secret identities.

But that actually it was American reporters had traced the true identity of Mary West McCott through copyright records.

Yes, because you've got to explicitly explain.

request copyright also i mean good investigative journalism even though it's ruining everyone's fun well yes but there's further things oh okay hit me because so so as i said agatha christie was unhappy of course but she did say that heinemann her publisher will come to that

for this book, said that the true identity could be referred to as long as it wasn't too blatant.

And she's told Edmund Cork, go ahead on the Mary Westmacott racket.