The Capture of Cerberus

When was it written?

Labours one to eleven were first published in the UK in The Strand magazine beginning in November 1939 (‘The Nemean Lion’) and culminating in September 1940 (‘The Apples of the Hesperides’). On 12 January 1940 Edmund Cork wrote to Christie about the twelfth story, explaining that he thought that The Strand would not publish it (at this stage they had already published three of them) and suggesting that she think about writing a replacement for eventual book publication. The Strand had already paid £1,200 for the stories as written and if they decided not to publish one of them, as they may have indicated to Edmund Cork, they were not entitled to look for a replacement. On 12 November 1940 (after The Strand had appeared without ‘Cerberus’) she wrote to ask for the return of ‘the Cerberus story’ in order ‘to do a new one’. But it was not until 23 January 1947 (i.e. early in the year of the book’s publication) that the second version was finally submitted.

Notebook 44 contains most of the notes for all 12 of the stories. At first glance it seems that they were all plotted and finished together, as most of the notes tally with the finished Labours as we know them. But a closer examination, in light of the discovery of the alternative version and this correspondence, shows a potentially different story. The initial notes for the last half-dozen stories all begin, and in some cases finish, on a right-hand page of Notebook 44 with the left-hand page left blank, and follow the sequence of the book. Notes for the first and hitherto unpublished version of ‘Cerberus’ follow this pattern. But the notes for the collected one are inserted, in different ink and slightly different writing, on a left-hand page, sandwiched, out of sequence, between those for ‘The Horses of Diomedes’ and ‘The Flock Of Geryon’. It is not unreasonable to suppose that, when inspiration for the revamped story struck, Christie went back to her original notes and inserted her new idea as near as she could to the original. Also, the later notes are written in biro, whereas the original notes are, like those for all the other Labours, in pencil.