Lady Edgware wishes to remarry and is distressed that her husband is treating her so callously. Jane Wilkinson, the Lady Edgware, a glamorous actress, asks Poirot to intervene on her behalf with her estranged husband, Lord Edgware, who is refusing to grant her a divorce.
Hercule Poirot, perhaps the most famous fictional detective, is at his best in this case. Originally published in the US as THIRTEEN FOR DINNER in 1933, the book was much lauded by reviewers and became one of Christie's best-selling novels. Consequently, further research is postulated to verify the hypothesis of similarities between detective novels and fairy tales as a factor contributing to the tremendous success of the former as a genre.LORD EDGWARE DIES is widely regarded as among Christie's best work. It is thereby claimed and confirmed through selected examples that the detective novels examined draw on a modified morphology typical of fairy tales, as is described by Propp. Then, the contents of two selected works by Christie, The mysterious affair at Styles and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, are scrutinised and retold in terms of the narratemes identified in them.
The nature of detective novels in general and the uniqueness of the detective Poirot as a character are outlined, followed by the presentation of Propp's narratemes. In this research, Vladimir Propp's narratemes - understood as recurring, genre-specific structure elements of the plot - are evidenced in two successful detective novels by Agatha Christie. But the immense success of detective stories can also be explained otherwise, which is the purpose of this article. The popularity of detective stories may result from the attraction of the hero, the entertaining thrill of the plot or the comforting power of the overall message which promises that evil will be defeated in the end: there is always someone able to fight it and determined to do so.
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