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They Do It With Mirrors

Agatha Christie

Reprint 1962 Fontana

The Fontana paperback edition is flat signed by Agatha Christie to the title page.

A single volume which has been re-bound in cloth with a matching slipcase that retains the original paperback cover.

The book and slip case are in fine condition.

Contents good with age toning to pages.

The book originally belonged to Mary Anna Marten and was purchased via auction. It was part of a lot of Thirty Five signed Agatha Christie books bound together in seven volumes. These have now been split and re-bound into separate individual volumes. All books were signed by Agatha Christie sometime in the late sixties. Mary Anna Marten OBE (1929 - 2010) the daughter of Napier George Henry Sturt, 3rd Baron Alington and Lady Mary Sibell Ashley-Cooper, daughter of the 9th Earl of Shaftesbury, sometime Lord Steward to the Household of George V & Queen Mary, by his wife Lady Constance Sibell Grosvenor, a great friend of Queen Mary, dau of Earl Grosvenor, and sister of Bendor, 2nd Duke of Westminster. She was god-daughter to Queen Elizabeth (later The Queen Mother), and in 1953 her son Napier was a page at the Coronation of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second.After joining the Brownies alongside Princess Margaret, Mary Anna went to school in Lancaster Gate and later attended Cheltenham Ladies' College. Upon the death of her father, Mary Anna inherited the Crichel House Estate in Dorset. Mary Anna and her husband, Lt.-Cdr. George (Toby) Gosselin Marten, Royal Navy, (1918 - 1997), son of Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Arthur Marten, were married on 25 November 1949 at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton. He was an equerry to King George VI, and the marriage was attended by King George VI, Queen Elizabeth (Mary Anna's godmother), Princess Margaret, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Marina, Duchess of Kent, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone and Major-General the Earl of Athlone.
The Martens had a son, Napier, and five daughters.[7] Mary Anna was made High Sheriff of Dorset in 1974, a post she held for 26 years, until 2000.She was an archaeologist of note. Mary Anna was appointed a Trustee of the British Museum by the Prime Minister on 5 December 1985. She was a collector of jade and of rare books. In 2008 Mary Anna published (privately) her memoirs entitled 'As it Was'. Mary Anna died on 20 January 2010.

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