Agatha Christie

The house of Collins acquired “Queen of Crime” Agatha Christie after she disagreed with her former publisher over the spelling of “coco”/”cocoa” in her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. More

Jacqueline Winspear

I read because I love language, the way the joining of words and the rhythm of a story can make me laugh, cry, or take me out of my world or immerse me in the lives of others. More

Social Change: Women Writers

In the mid-late 1800s, Harper & Brothers reprinted several milestone titles in the history of British feminist literature as well as the global canon, such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), and Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), as well as George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872). More

Crime & Mystery At HarperCollins

In 1860, Harper & Brothers had paid Wilkie Collins £750 for The Woman in White, which heralded the publisher’s entry into the crime and mystery genre. More

The Woman in White

One of the earliest works of detective fiction, this story caused a sensation with readers at the time. More

Letter from Agatha Christie

This letter from Agatha Christie (here signing with her second married name, Mallowan) shows the close relationship she had with Collins publisher Billy Collins. More

Bleak House

Dickens’s tenth novel, often considered his finest; significantly influenced the development of mystery novels. More