- Dated. Crime Club first editions are dated.
- Binding. First editions are bound in red or orange cloth lettered in black.
- Jacket price. First edition jackets are priced 7/6 or more.
- Colonial editions. Jackets with no printed price belong to "colonial" editions made for sale in overseas markets such as Australia and New Zealand.
Publisher
Collins (The Crime Club)
The Collins Crime Club was William Collins's detective fiction imprint, launched in May 1930 and closed in 1994, best known as Agatha Christie's British publisher from The Murder at the Vicarage onwards.
- Editions tracked
- 12
- First editions
- 4
- Books
- 12
- Years
- 1930 to 1975
Collins (The Crime Club) is a publisher active from 1930. We track 12 editions it published between 1930 and 1975, 4 of them first editions across 12 books. How Collins (The Crime Club) marked its first editions is set out below, with a checker for the year on your title page.
About Collins (The Crime Club)
The Collins Crime Club was the crime fiction imprint of the publisher William Collins, Sons, launched on 6 May 1930 and wound up in April 1994, by which time it had issued more than 2,000 first editions.
How it worked. Readers registered as members and received a newsletter every three months about forthcoming titles; accounts put the subscriber count at 20,000 to 25,000 by the mid 1930s. The plan was to issue three new crime novels on the first Monday of each month, one chosen as the "Selection" and two as "Recommended". Output peaked before the war at 42 books in 1938 and fell to 16 in 1946 because of paper shortages.
Agatha Christie. Christie was under contract to Collins from 1926, and from The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) almost all of her books appeared under the Crime Club name. Ngaio Marsh's books followed from 1939. The Crime Club also issued the first shop edition of The Hound of Death in February 1936, after Odhams' coupon edition of 1933.
Later years. Elizabeth Walter edited the list until she retired in 1994, when the imprint closed. News Corporation bought Collins in 1989, the year Collins merged with Harper & Row to form HarperCollins.
Holding a copy? The first edition checker shows Collins (The Crime Club)'s practice for the year on your title page.
Identification
How to identify Collins (The Crime Club) first editions
Books
Published by Collins (The Crime Club)
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 net (first issue jacket)
Worth£270 to £380
- Collins (The Crime Club)1948 Hardback · canon of Hercule Poirot 23 £270 to £380Sold £440 · Sep 2026 I own Taken at the Flood, Collins (The Crime Club) 1948 Log in to want this
Frequently asked questions
How do I identify a Collins (The Crime Club) first edition?
- Dated. Crime Club first editions are dated. - Binding. First editions are bound in red or orange cloth lettered in black. - Jacket price. First edition jackets are priced 7/6 or more. - Colonial editions. Jackets with no printed price belong to "colonial" editions made for sale in overseas markets such as Australia and New Zealand.
How many Collins (The Crime Club) books does MyVolumes track?
We track 12 editions published by Collins (The Crime Club), 4 of them first editions, across 12 books.
Where these facts come from
- Collins Crime Club, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- Desperately Seeking Members of the Prestigious Collins Crime Club, Rare Books Digest, 2018 (rarebooksdigest.com)
- Agatha Christie Cover Art: Collins Publishing, Blogger (christiecoverart.blogspot.com)
- The Hound of Death, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
- Harvill Secker, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources listed. Checked 29 October 2026. Reviewed by Harriet Ellis; read how we check facts.