Unpublished for 90 years Agatha Christie's extensive and evocative letters and photographs
from her year-long round-the-world trip to South Africa Australia New Zealand Canada and
America as part of the British trade mission for the famous 1924 Empire Exhibition. In 1922
Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as
part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Leaving her
two-year-old daughter behind with her sister Agatha set sail at the end of January and did not
return until December but she kept up a detailed weekly correspondence with her mother
describing in detail the exotic places and people she encountered as the mission travelled
through South Africa Australia New Zealand Hawaii and Canada. The extensive and previously
unpublished letters are accompanied by hundreds of photos taken on her portable camera as well
as some of the original letters postcards newspaper cuttings and memorabilia collected by
Agatha on her trip. Edited and introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson Matthew Prichard this
unique travelogue reveals a new side to Agatha Christie demonstrating how her appetite for
exotic plots and locations for her books began with this eye-opening trip which took place
just after only her second novel had been published (the first leg of the tour to South Africa
is very clearly the inspiration for the book she wrote immediately afterwards The Man in the
Brown Suit ). The letters are full of tales of seasickness and sunburn motor trips and surf
boarding and encounters with welcoming locals and overbearing Colonials. The Grand Tour is a
book steeped in history sure to fascinate anyone interested in the lost world of the 1920s.
Coming from the pen of Britain's biggest literary export and the world's most widely translated
author it is also a fitting tribute to Agatha Christie and is sure to fascinate her legions of
worldwide fans.
