By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition | |
| Author | Agatha Christie |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Kenneth Farnhill |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
Publication date | November 1968 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 256 (first edition, hardcover) |
| Preceded by | Endless Night |
| Followed by | Hallowe'en Party |
By the Pricking of My Thumbs is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1968 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at twenty-one shillings (21/-) and the US edition at $4.95. It features her detectives Tommy and Tuppence Beresford.
Tommy and Tuppence are middle-aged in this work (they aged from novel to novel).
The title of the book comes from Act 4, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, when the second witch says:
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.