by Sandra Petersen

Created on: September 22, 2011   Last Updated: September 23, 2011

If you harbor a phobia of dolls, you will feel justified in your fear after reading Agatha Christie’s “The Dressmaker’s Doll.” Agatha Christie, born on 15 September 1890, was 68 years old when she wrote this chilling supernatural short story. She would live for another sixteen years after its publication.

Plot Summary
The entire short story takes place in a London dressmaker’s shop which caters to very wealthy clients. The time period is not stated but seems to be post-Victorian. Sybil Fox and Alicia Coombe, the dressmaker, become aware of a mysterious doll which appears one day in the fitting room without either of the women remembering how it came to be there. In subsequent days and weeks, the doll begins to appear in various poses throughout the room. None of the dressmaker’s staff admit to moving the doll. All who see the doll express an unpleasant feeling that it seems too much like a living thing with malicious motives. The final actions in the story indicate why the doll did what she did. Or do they?

Main Characters
Sybil Fox, the younger of the two main human characters, cuts dress fabric and assists customers with their dress fittings. She is the first to become aware of the doll while preparing for a customer’s fitting. Sybil is the one who brings finished dresses down from the upstairs sewing room. She is quite close to the dressmaker and assists her with finding things she has mislaid.

Alicia Coombe is elderly and the owner of the dress shop. She is the dressmaker of the story’s title. Miss Coombe handles the bills and client accounts. She rarely sits in when a customer is being fitted but comes downstairs from her living quarters when the customer is an upper class wealthy client. Miss Coombe is forgetful and often misplaces her spectacles. Sybil asks her several times where and when she got the doll. It is Miss Coombe’s forgetfulness which prevents either woman from believing the doll appeared out of nowhere.

The third main character is the doll. She is dressed in velvet clothes and cap in the same green hue as the fitting room surroundings. Her head is made of silk with painted features. She is what was known as a Puppet Doll, an ornamental doll which wealthy women used as decorations for tabletops or chairs. One of the customers, Mrs. Fellows-Brown says the doll looks “as though she was watching us all, and perhaps laughing in that velvet sleeve of hers.” Mrs. Groves, the cleaning

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>