Résumé
Résumé de Rubrique des annonces personnelles
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About 1 h 40 min to read.Commencez 90 jours gratuitsÀ qui s’adresse-t-il ?
You will enjoy this book if you like clever puzzles, quick London atmosphere, a touch of romance, and playful narrators. It suits readers who love coded messages and amateur sleuths.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Picture a stifling July morning in London in 1914. A young American sits in a hotel breakfast room, eating strawberries and reading the personal notices in the Daily Mail. Then a girl with violet eyes walks in, carrying the same newspaper. What would you do?
The Agony Column was written by Earl Derr Biggers, the American novelist who later created the detective Charlie Chan. It is a short, fast mystery told in letters, one a day for seven days, from a man trying to win a woman he has barely seen. You get a murder, a missing knife, and coded notices.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A newspaper column brings two strangers togetherFree
- 2Seven letters must prove he is worth knowing
- 3A quarrel upstairs ends in a killing
- 4Four small notices may hold the answer
- 5Two visitors ask him to tell the same lie
- 6Curiosity is the engine that keeps the letters moving
- 7Ordinary lives wait at the edge of a great war
- 8Letters, headlines, and a bootblack shape the telling
Point clé 1 sur 8
A newspaper column brings two strangers together
The story opens on Friday, July 24, 1914, in a London baking in the heat. Geoffrey West, an American from Kansas, lives in rooms on Adelphi Terrace. He visits the Carlton hotel for strawberries and the newspapers. The Times is for study and the Mail is for fun.
What he loves in the Mail is the Personal Notices, known as the Agony Column. Lovers beg each other to come home, and suitors dodge angry fathers. Strangers seek introductions to a woman in a bonnet or a lady who waved from a taxi. In the Times, a tiny item says Austria has sent an ultimatum to Serbia. He barely notices it.
Then a girl walks into the breakfast room with her father. Her hair is gold and her eyes are violet, but it is her easy manner that stops West cold. She orders grapefruit, says she hates strawberries, and reads aloud from the same column. West orders a second plate of strawberries, loudly. They are from Texas.
Back on his balcony, West has an idea. He calls it absurd, yet he cannot put it away. The next morning the girl finds a notice addressed to the young woman who preferred grapefruit to strawberries. Her face is stern at first. Then, behind the paper, a smile appears.
A single daring message can turn a glance across a room into the start of a story.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
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About 1 h 40 min to read.Commencez 90 jours gratuitsPaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 23,600 words
- Reading timeAbout 1 h 40 min
Questions about Rubrique des annonces personnelles
What is The Agony Column about?
An American in London in 1914 begins writing daily letters to a woman he met only by sight. His letters soon carry a murder next door, coded newspaper notices, a Scotland Yard inspector, and the threat of war.
What does the Agony Column mean in the book?
It is the nickname for the Personal Notices in the Daily Mail, where readers placed short messages by the word. Lovers, schemers, and joking strangers all used it, and in the story it becomes a way to speak in code.
Who are Geoffrey West and Marian Larned?
West is a Kansas-born American in London who writes the seven letters. Marian is a spirited young woman from Texas who reads them while touring Europe with her father, a congressman fond of quoting his bootblack on foreign affairs.
When is The Agony Column set and is it a true story?
It is a work of fiction by Earl Derr Biggers, set in the final days of peace in late July and early August 1914, with real London places such as the Carlton, the Strand, and Scotland Yard.
Is The Agony Column easy to read?
Yes, it is approachable. The short chapters are mostly letters in a chatty, humorous voice, the clues are simple objects like asters, a pin, and a hat, and each letter ends on a hook that pulls you along.
Cite this edition
Biggers, Earl Derr. The Agony Column. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-agony-column.
Biggers, E. D. (2026). The agony column. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-agony-column (Original work published 1916)
Biggers, Earl Derr. The Agony Column. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-agony-column.
@book{biggers2026agony,
author = {Biggers, Earl Derr},
title = {The Agony Column},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-agony-column},
note = {First published 1916}
}
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