Hercule Poirot available to solve mysteries at an English country house. At the time of Christie's writing, it was considered patriotic to express sympathy towards the Belgians, since the invasion of their country had constituted Britain's "casus belli" for entering World War I, and British wartime propaganda emphasised the "Rape of Belgium". Poirot first appeared in "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" (published in 1920) and exited in "Curtain" (published in 1975). Following the latter, Poirot was the only fictional character to receive an obituary on the front page of "The New York Times". By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot "insufferable", and, by
Hercule Poirot in literature canon by most fans and biographers. This would render everything else (plays, movies, television adaptations, etc.) as an adaptation, or secondary material. A contradiction between the novels can be resolved, in most cases, by going with the novel that was published first. An example of this would be the ongoing controversy over Poirot's age. Taken at face value it appears that Poirot was over 125 years old when he died. Though the majority of the Hercule Poirot novels are set between World War I and World War II, the later novels then set him in the 1960s (which is contemporary