Although the first book by Agatha Christie released in Spain was Peril at End House (Collins Crime Club, 1932), under the Spanish title El peligro inminente, published on 9 June 1934 in the collection “La Novela Aventura, Serie Detectivesca #30” by Hymsa, the name of Agatha Christie in Spain is closely related to Editorial Molino.
Editorial Molino was created in 1933 in Barcelona, the initiative of Pablo del Molino Mateus (1900-1968) with the vision of creating a collection of novels accessible to the general public.
In its first period, Editorial Molino launched the publication of the Biblioteca Oro collection, dedicated to three literary genres: the adventure novel (Red Series), the Western (Blue Series), and the detective novel (Yellow Series). Among them, several novels by Agatha Christie were published in the Yellow Series, modelled after the Italian giallo.
Before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the “Yellow Series” was numbered with the Roman III accompanied, as in the other series, by the number of each title in Arabic characters. The war started with the number III-64 on the newsstands. At the end of the war, publishing was resumed in Spain with some difficulties at first because paper was in short supply.
Editorial Molino published 81 titles by Agatha Christie, the first was El asesinato de Rogelio Akroyd (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926) tr.: G.Bernard de Ferrer. (7 Julio 1934. Nº III-12 )
The other five Christies published before 1936 were:
- La muerte de Lord Edgware ( Nº III- 23, 1934 ) Lord Edgware dies., 1933
- El misterio del tren azul ( Nº III-28, 1934 ) The Mystery of the Blue Train, 1928
- Tragedia en tres actos (Nº III-38, 1935) tr.: José Mallorquí Figuerola Three Act Tragedy, 1934
- El misterio de Sittaford (Nº III-47, 1935 ) The Sittaford Mystery, 1931
- Muerte en las nubes (Nº III-61, 1936) Death in the Clouds, 1935
Later, the collection changed its name to Selecciones Biblioteca Oro.
The publishing fund of Editorial Molino was acquired by RBA Grupo Editorial in 2004 and, more recently, in May 2021, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial bought RBA.
A Crime is Afoot 