The Horror of Lists

I thought I had ironed out all my problems with my reading itinerary: cross reference the "Marple Reading List" and "Poirot Reading List" with the "All Stories" list and I'd come up with the perfect balance between character story arcs and the chronology of Christie's published works. I was wrong.

I've already mentioned the Miss Marple Suggested Reading Order differed greatly from Reading Order for Christie's Novels and Short Story Collections listed at www.agathachristie.com, and tonight I discovered there are a few minor differences with the Poirot list as well. But there is also a far bigger problem: the short story collections.

The "All Stories" list lists most of the major short story collections published in America and the UK. Some collections that were published in the UK weren't in America and vice-versa. All stories were eventually published on both continents but sometimes decades apart. For example, a mystery first published in a UK collection in the 1930s might appeared in a US book published in the 1950s alongside stories not published in the UK until the 1970s. Because BOTH UK and US collections are listed according to order of publication not by content, and the collections often contain stories published in earlier anthologies, when am I actually supposed to read the read the Regatta Mystery? or the Adventure of the Clapham Cook? or...

Truly there is no "supposed to": Agatha Christie was a very prolific writer but she didn't publish a "How to Read My Books" guide. But, me being me, aka obsessive compulsive, I want to find the perfect order. I've just spent the last several hours creating an Excel spreadsheet will all three suggested order lists and each of the short story collections broken down by their contents. It is almost 1:30 am and I have to be up at 6 am, so finding the original publication date for each mystery will have to wait until tomorrow.