2 h 52 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 2 h 52 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
In a London full of strangers, a newspaper's personal notices open the door to romance and murder.
The Agony Column brings you into London in the last days of peace before the First World War. Visitors, clerks, clubs, boarding houses and theatres fill its streets. In this busy city, Earl Derr Biggers brings a love story and a crime together, giving romance something more dangerous to contend with.
At the heart of the mystery is a newspaper habit: short personal notices carrying messages, appeals and hints between people who cannot speak another way. These strange, sometimes sad scraps offer a doorway into a puzzle. Biggers pairs that intrigue with the humour and clear style that mark his fiction.
What you’ll discover
- Messages between strangers Explore personal notices where a few brief words carry appeals, hints and private meaning.
- Romance with something at stake Follow a love story that shares its world with the danger of murder.
- London before the war Step among visitors, clubs and boarding houses in a capital still at peace.
- A lighter kind of mystery Enjoy an old-fashioned puzzle with humour and romance rather than dark realism.
- Biggers before Charlie Chan Discover an earlier mystery from a writer with a clear style and love of intrigue.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A newspaper notice opens a door
- Seven letters become his chance
- The witness comes under suspicion
- Ordinary notices conceal a pattern
- Confessions make the truth less clear
- Curiosity draws Marian toward the writer
- War changes the weight of events
- The letters create a conversation
- Small signals carry a daring impulse
Who’s who
- Geoffrey WestAn American from Kansas living in Adelphi Terrace, he writes seven daily letters to win the attention of a woman he met only by sight.
- Marian LarnedA lively young woman from Texas touring London with her father, she loves mystery and romance and reads the Agony Column with delight.
- Captain Stephen Fraser-FreerAn Indian Army officer on leave in London, he lives above West and meets his visitor with cold reserve.
- Chief Inspector BrayThe efficient head of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard, he leads the murder case and views West with suspicion.
- Colonel HughesA tanned, friendly officer and friend of the dead captain, he offers West help and works quietly on his own inquiry.
- Lieutenant Norman Fraser-FreerThe captain's young brother, he is ready to take terrible blame to protect his family's honor.
- Archibald EnwrightA talkative Englishman West meets in Interlaken, he gives West a letter of introduction to a cousin who denies knowing him.
- WaltersThe caretaker of the house on Adelphi Terrace, once a gardener, he loves the courtyard and serves the lodgers anxiously.
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The Agony Column
by Earl Derr Biggers · 1916
An American in London addresses a stranger through the newspaper, and a murder soon fills his letters.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read2 languages
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In short
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.
The Agony Column at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 40 min1 h 20 min fast, 2 h slow
- Length
- 23,600 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1916by Earl Derr Biggers
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1916
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1 h 50 min
- Level
- Medium level
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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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.
The author
Earl Derr Biggers
1884–1933 · American mystery novelist
Earl Derr Biggers (1884–1933) was an American novelist and playwright born in Warren, Ohio. He wrote Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913) and The Agony Column (1916). His detective Charlie Chan first appeared in The House Without a Key (1925). Biggers later lived in California and died in Pasadena in 1933.
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