Collins Crime Club was the London crime imprint of William Collins, Sons from 1930 to 1994, first publishing most of Agatha Christie's novels plus Ngaio Marsh and Reginald Hill.
Collins Crime Club is a publisher active from 1931. We track 14 editions it published between 1931 and 1987, 8 of them first editions across 14 books. How Collins Crime Club marked its first editions is set out below, with a checker for the year on your title page.
Collins Crime Club was the detective-fiction imprint of the London publisher William Collins, Sons, running from 6 May 1930 until April 1994, and it was the British first-edition home of most of Agatha Christie's novels.
Christie's books carried the Crime Club name from The Murder at the Vicarage (October 1930) onwards, all but five of her later titles among them. Murder on the Orient Express appeared under the imprint on 1 January 1934.
The list reached far beyond Christie. From 1939, starting with Overture to Death, the club issued all of Ngaio Marsh's remaining novels, and its Golden Age authors included John Rhode and Freeman Wills Crofts, with the American Rex Stout added later. Reginald Hill's first Dalziel and Pascoe novel, A Clubbable Woman, came out under the imprint in 1970, and Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy series began there in 1977 with The Judas Pair.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation bought out Collins in 1989, bringing the imprint into HarperCollins. Elizabeth Walter, its editor, kept the Crime Club running until she retired, and the last titles under the name appeared in April 1994.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Collins Crime Club's practice for the year on your title page.
A Collins Crime Club first is identified mainly by its binding and its dust jacket, which collectors should check against each other.
Points to check
Traps
Spot the first: Dust jacket, front flap: Printed price on the front flap: 7/6 (first issue jacket)
Spot the first: Dust jacket, front flap: Printed price on the front flap: 7/6 (first issue jacket)
Spot the first: Dust jacket, front flap: Printed price on the front flap: 7s. 6d. net (first issue jacket)
Spot the edition: Dust jacket, front flap: Printed price on the front flap: 10s. 6d. (first issue jacket)
A Collins Crime Club first is identified mainly by its binding and its dust jacket, which collectors should check against each other. Points to check - Pre-war UK copies are typically bound in orange cloth lettered in black. - Dust jackets on pre-war first editions are priced 7/6 (seven shillings and sixpence). Traps - Jackets are frequently "supplied from another copy", and jackets stripped from
We track 14 editions published by Collins Crime Club, 8 of them first editions, across 14 books.
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources listed. Checked 27 October 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.
