Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie,
DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was a
British
crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote six
romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best
remembered for the 66 detective novels and more than 15 short story
collections she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around
the investigations of such characters as
Hercule Poirot,
Miss Jane Marple and
Tommy and Tuppence. She also wrote the world's longest-running play
The Mousetrap.[1]
Born to a wealthy upper-middle-class family in
Torquay,
Devon,
Christie served in a hospital during the
First World War before marrying and starting a family in London.
Although initially unsuccessful at getting her work published, in 1920,
The Bodley Head press published her novel
The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of
Poirot. This launched her literary career.
According to the
Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling
novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 4
billion copies, and her
estate claims that her works rank third, after those of
William Shakespeare and the
Bible, as
the world's most widely published books.[2]
According to
Index Translationum, Christie is the most translated individual
author, and her books have been translated into at least 103 languages.[3]
And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel with
100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery
ever, and one of the
best-selling books of all time.[4]
In 1971, she was made a
Dame by Queen
Elizabeth II at
Buckingham Palace.[5]
Christie's stage play
The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run: it
opened at the
Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is
still running after more than 25,000 performances.[6]
In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the
Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the
Grand Master Award, and in the same year
Witness for the Prosecution was given an
Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. Many of her books and
short stories have been filmed, and many have been adapted for
television, radio, video games and comics.
Life and career
Childhood: 1890–1910
Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie was born on 15 September 1890 into a
wealthy
upper middle-class family in Ashfield,
Torquay,
Devon in
South West England.
Christie's mother, Clara Boehmer was an Englishwoman who had been born
in
Belfast, modern day
Northern Ireland, in 1854 to Captain Frederick Boehmer and Mary Ann
West; the couple's only daughter, she had four brothers, one of whom
died young. Captain Boehmer was killed in a riding accident while
stationed on
Jersey
in April 1863, leaving Mary Ann to raise her children alone on a meagre
income. Under financial strain, she sent Clara to live with her aunt
Margaret Miller née West, who had married a wealthy American Nathaniel
Frary Miller in 1863 and lived in Prinsted, West Sussex. Clara stayed
with Margaret and there she would meet her future husband, an American
stockbroker named Frederick Alvah Miller the son of Nathaniel.
Frederick was a member of the small and wealthy American upper class,
and had been sent to Europe to gain an education in Switzerland.
Considered personable and friendly by those who knew him, he soon
developed a romantic relationship with Clara, and they were married in
April 1878.
Their first child, Margaret "Madge" Frary Miller (1879–1950) was born in
Torquay, where the couple were renting lodgings, while their second,
Louis "Monty" Montant (1880–1929) was born in the U.S. state of
New
York, where Frederick was on a business trip. Clara soon purchased a
villa in Torquay, named "Ashfield", in which to raise her family, and it
was here that her third and final child, Agatha, was born.
Agatha Christie as a girl (date unknown).
Christie would describe her childhood as "very happy",
and was surrounded by a series of strong and independent women from an
early age.
Her time was spent alternating between her Devonshire home, her step
grandmother/aunt's house in
Ealing,
West London and parts of Southern Europe, where her family would
holiday during the winter.
Nominally Christian, she was also raised in a household with various
esoteric beliefs, and like her siblings believed that their mother
Clara was a
psychic
with the ability of
second sight.
Her mother insisted that she receive a
home education, and so her parents were responsible for teaching her
to read and write, and to be able to perform basic
arithmetic, a subject that she particularly enjoyed. They also
taught her about music, and she learned to play both the
piano and
the
mandolin.
A voracious reader from an early age, among her earliest memories were
those of reading the children's books written by
Mrs Molesworth, including The Adventures of Herr Baby (1881),
Christmas Tree Land (1897) and The Magic Nuts (1898). She
also read the work of
Edith Nesbit, including
The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899),
The Phoenix and the Carpet (1903) and
The Railway Children (1906). When a little older she moved on to
reading the surreal verse of
Edward Lear and
Lewis Carroll.
Much of her childhood was spent largely alone and separate from other
children, although she spent much time with her pets, whom she adored.
Eventually making friends with a group of other girls in Torquay, she
noted that "one of the highlights of my existence" was her appearance in
a local theatrical production of
The Yeomen of the Guard where she starred alongside them.
Her father was often ill, suffering from a series of
heart attacks, and in November 1901 he died, aged 55. His death left
the family devastated, and in an uncertain economic situation. Clara and
Agatha continued to live together in their Torquay home; Madge had moved
to the nearby Cheadle Hall with her new husband and Monty had joined the
army and been sent to South Africa to fight in the
Boer War. Agatha would later claim that her father's death,
occurring when she was 11 years old, marked the end of her childhood for
her.
In 1902, Agatha would be sent to receive a formal education at Miss
Guyer's Girls School in Torquay, but found it difficult to adjust to the
disciplined atmosphere. In 1905 she was then sent to the city of Paris,
France, where she was educated in three pensions – Mademoiselle
Cabernet's, Les Marroniers and then Miss Dryden's – the latter of which
served primarily as a
finishing school.
Early literary attempts and the First World War: 1910–1919
Returning to England in 1910, Agatha found that her mother Clara had
been taken ill, and so they decided to head for a holiday in the warmer
climate of
Cairo in
Egypt, then a part of the
British Empire and a popular tourist destination for wealthy
Britons. Staying for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel, Agatha –
always chaperoned by her mother – spent much of her time attending
social functions in search for a potential husband. Although visiting
such ancient Egyptian monuments as the
Great Pyramid of Giza, she did not exhibit the interest in
archaeology and Egyptology that she would in later life.[20]
Returning to Britain, she continued her social activities in search of a
husband, also taking part in writing and performing in amateur
theatrics, helping to put together a play called The Blue Beard of
Unhappiness with a number of female friends. Her writing extended to
both poetry and music, and some of her early works saw publication, but
she decided against focusing on either of these as future professions.[21]
It was while recovering in bed from an illness that she penned her first
short story; entitled "The House of Beauty", it consisted of about 6000
words and dealt with the world of "madness and dreams" which fascinated
Christie. Later Christie biographer
Janet Morgan would comment that while it suffered from "infelicities
of style", it was nevertheless "a compelling story".[22]
She soon followed this up with a string of other shorts, most of which
illustrated her interest in spiritualism and the paranormal, including
"The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely God". Sending them to various
magazines under a series of pseudonyms, all of her early texts were
rejected, although they would all be revised and published at a later
date, sometimes under new titles.[23]
Christie then began to put together her first novel, Snow Upon the
Desert, which was set in Cairo and drew from her recent experiences
in the city. Sending it to various publishers under the pseudonym of
Monosyllaba, she was perturbed when they all declined.[24]
Clara suggested that her daughter ask for advice from a family friend,
the successful writer
Eden Philpotts, which she duly did. Philpotts obliged, encouraging
her with her writing and sending her an introduction to his literary
agent,
Hughes Massie; he too however rejected Snow Upon the Desert,
suggesting that she try writing a second novel.[25]
Meanwhile, she had continued searching for a husband, and had entered
into short-lived relationships with four separate men before meeting a
young man named Archibald "Archie" Christie (1889-1962)[26]
at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford of
Chudleigh, about 12 miles from Torquay. Archie had been born in
India, the son of a judge in the
Indian Civil Service, before travelling to England where he joined
the air force, who stationed him in Devon in 1912. Soon entering into a
relationship, the couple fell in love, and after being informed that he
was being stationed in
Farnborough, Archie asked her to marry him, and she accepted.[27]
1914 saw the outbreak of
World War I, and Archie was sent to France to battle the German
forces. Agatha also involved herself in the war effort, joining the
Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and attending to wounded soldiers at
the hospital in Torquay. In this position she was responsible for aiding
the doctors and trying to keep up morale, performing 3,400 hours of
unpaid work between October 1914 and December 1916 before earning a wage
as a dispenser at an annual rate of £16 until the end of her service in
September 1918. She met her fiancé in London during his leave at the end
of 1914, and they were married on the afternoon of
Christmas Eve. They would meet up again throughout the war each time
that he was posted home. Rising through the ranks, he was eventually
stationed back to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in the
Air Ministry, and with Agatha he settled into a flat at 5 Northwick
Terrace in
St. John's Wood, Northwest London.[28]
First
novels: 1919–1923
Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed
Wilkie Collins'
The Woman in White and
The Moonstone as well as
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early
Sherlock Holmes stories. Deciding to write her own detective novel,
entitled
The Mysterious Affair at Styles, she created a detective named
Hercule Poirot to be her protagonist. A former Belgian police
officer noted for his twirly moustache and egg-shaped head, Poirot had
been a refugee who had fled to Britain following Germany's invasion of
Belgium; in this manner, Christie had been influenced by the Belgian
refugees whom she had encountered in Torquay.[29]
After unsuccessfully sending her manuscript to such publishing companies
as
Hodder and Stoughton and
Methuen, she sent it to
John Lane at
The Bodley Head, who kept it for several months before announcing
that the press would publish it on the condition that Christie agreed to
change the ending. She duly did so, and signed a contract with Lane that
she would later claim to have been exploitative.[30]
Christie meanwhile settled into married life, giving birth to a daughter
named
Rosalind at Ashfield in August 1919, where the couple – having few
friends in London – spent much of their time.[31]
Having left the Air Force at the end of the war, Archie gained a job in
the City working in the financial sector, and although he started
out on a relatively low salary, he was still able to employ a maid for
his family.[32]
Christie's second novel,
The Secret Adversary (1922), featured new protagonists in the
form of detective couple
Tommy and Tuppence; again published by The Bodley Head, it earned
her £50. She followed this with a third novel, once again featuring
Poirot, entitled
Murder on the Links (1923), as well as a series of Poirot short
stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of Sketch magazine.[33]
When Archie was offered a job organising a world tour to promote the
British Empire Exhibition, the couple left their daughter with
Agatha's mother and sister and travelled to South Africa, Australia, New
Zealand and Hawaii.[34][35]
The couple learnt to surf prone in South Africa and in
Waikiki
became some of the first
Britons to
surf
standing up.[36]
Disappearance
In late 1926, Christie's husband Archie revealed that he was in love
with Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce. On 3 December 1926, the couple
quarrelled, and Archie left their house Styles in
Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at
Godalming, Surrey. That same evening, around 9.45pm, Christie
disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary
saying that she was going to
Yorkshire. Her car, a
Morris Cowley, was later found at
Newlands Corner, near
Guildford. On the back seat was found her driving licence and some
clothes. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public. The Home
Secretary,
William Joynson-Hicks, put pressure on the police department to find
her; a reward was offered. Over a thousand police officers, 15000
volunteers and several aeroplanes were used to scour the rural
landscape.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took one of Christie's gloves to a
spirit medium in order to discover the location of the missing
woman. At this time,
Dorothy L Sayers visited the house in Surrey, later using the
scenario in her book
Unnatural Death. Christie's disappearance featured on the front
page of the New York Times. Despite the massive manhunt, she was
not found for 10 days.[37][38][39][40]
On 14 December 1926, Agatha Christie was identified as a guest at the
Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the
Old Swan Hotel[a])
in
Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she had been registered as 'Mrs Teresa
Neele' from
Cape
Town, since the day of her disappearance. Christie never explained
her disappearance from Surrey.[38]
Although two doctors had diagnosed her as suffering from
psychogenic fugue, opinion remains divided. A
nervous breakdown from a natural propensity for depression may have
been exacerbated by her mother's death earlier that year and her
husband's infidelity. Public reaction at the time was largely negative,
supposing a
publicity stunt or attempt to frame her husband for murder.[42][b]
Author Jared Cade interviewed numerous witnesses and relatives for
his sympathetic biography, Agatha Christie and the Missing Eleven
Days, and provided a substantial amount of evidence to suggest that
Christie planned the entire disappearance to embarrass her husband,
never thinking it would escalate into the melodrama it became.[44]
The Christies divorced in 1928. During their marriage, she had published
six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories
in magazines.
Second
marriage and later life
Agatha Christie blue plaque. No. 58 Sheffield Terrace,
Kensington & Chelsea, London
In 1930, Christie married archaeologist
Max Mallowan after joining him in an archaeological dig. Their
marriage was always happy, continuing until Christie's death in 1976.[45]
Max introduced her to wine, which she never enjoyed, preferring to drink
water in restaurants. She tried unsuccessfully to make herself like
cigarettes by smoking one after lunch and one after dinner every day for
six months.[46]
Christie frequently used settings which were familiar to her for her
stories. Christie's travels with Mallowan contributed background to
several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as
And Then There Were None) were set in and around
Torquay,
where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel
Murder on the Orient Express was written in the
Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the
railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the
author.[47]
The
Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer
residence in 1938, is now in the care of the
National Trust.
Christie often stayed at
Abney Hall in Cheshire, owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts,
basing at least two stories there: short story "The
Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", in the story collection of the
same name, and the novel
After the Funeral. "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration
for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have
been woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Chimneys,
Stoneygates, and other houses in her stories are mostly Abney in various
forms."[48]
During the Second World War, Christie worked in the pharmacy at
University College Hospital, London, where she acquired a knowledge
of poisons that she put to good use in her post-war crime novels. For
example, the use of
thallium as a poison was suggested to her by UCH Chief Pharmacist
Harold Davis (later appointed Chief Pharmacist at the UK Ministry of
Health), and in
The Pale Horse, published in 1961, she employed it to dispatch a
series of victims, the first clue to the murder method coming from the
victims' loss of hair. So accurate was her description of thallium
poisoning that on at least one occasion it helped solve a case that was
baffling doctors.[49][50]
Around 1941–1942, the British intelligence agency
MI5
investigated Agatha Christie. A character called Major Bletchley
appeared in her 1941 thriller
N or
M?, a story that features a hunt for two of Hitler's top secret
spy agents in Britain .[51]
MI5 was afraid that Christie had a spy in Britain's top-secret
codebreaking centre,
Bletchley Park. The agency's fears were allayed when Christie
commented to codebreaker
Dilly Knox that Bletchley was simply the name of "one of my least
lovable characters."[52]
To honour her many literary works, she was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956
New Year Honours.[53]
The next year, she became the President of the
Detection Club.[54]
In the 1971 New Year Honours, she was promoted
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire,[55]
three years after her husband had been
knighted for his archaeological work in 1968.[56]
They were one of the few married couples where both partners were
honoured in their own right. From 1968, due to her husband's knighthood,
Christie could also be
styled as Lady Mallowan.
Agatha Christie's gravestone in Cholsey.
From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, although she
continued to write. In 1975, sensing her increasing weakness, Christie
signed over the rights of her most successful play, The Mousetrap,
to her grandson.[45]
Recently, using experimental textual tools of analysis, Canadian
researchers have suggested that Christie may have begun to suffer from
Alzheimer's disease or other dementia.[57][58][59][60]
Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes
at her
Winterbrook House in the north of
Cholsey
parish, adjoining
Wallingford in Oxfordshire (formerly part of Berkshire). She is
buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey.
Christie's only child, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, died, also aged 85,
on 28 October 2004 from natural causes in
Torbay,
Devon.[61]
Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, was heir to the copyright to some
of his grandmother's literary work (including
The Mousetrap) and is still associated with Agatha Christie
Limited.
Work
Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple
Agatha Christie's first novel
The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and
introduced the long-running character detective
Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short
stories.
Well-known
Miss Marple was introduced in
The Thirteen Problems in 1927 (short stories) and was based on
Christie's grandmother and her "Ealing cronies".[62]
Both Jane and Gran "always expected the worst of everyone and
everything, and was, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved
right."
Miss Marple appeared in 12 of Christie's novels.
During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels,
Curtain, and
Sleeping Murder, intended as the last cases of these two great
detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. Both books were sealed in a
bank vault for over thirty years and were released for publication
by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she
could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of
the success of the
film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.
Like Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle with
Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her
detective Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to
her diary that she was finding Poirot "insufferable," and by the 1960s
she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep." However, unlike Doyle,
Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was
still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to
produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot.[64]
Feeling tied down, stuck with a love interest, she did marry off
Hastings in an attempt to trim her cast commitments.
In contrast, Christie was fond of
Miss Marple. However, it is interesting to note that the Belgian
detective's titles outnumber the Marple titles more than two to one.
This is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in
her career, while
The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until
the 1940s.
Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and
Miss Marple. In a recording discovered and released in 2008, Christie
revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would
not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by
an elderly spinster lady".[62]
Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary
in
The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain.
It appeared on the front page of the paper on 6 August 1975.[66]
Following the great success of Curtain, Dame Agatha gave
permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976
but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may
explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple
series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's
friend Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder despite
the fact he is noted as having died in books published earlier. It may
be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript
before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after
solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her
regular life in
St. Mary Mead.
Formula and
plot devices
Almost all of Christie's books are
whodunits, focusing on the British
middle and
upper classes. Usually, the detective either stumbles across the
murder or is called upon by an old acquaintance, who is somehow
involved. Gradually, the detective interrogates each suspect, examines
the scene of the crime and makes a note of each clue, so readers can
analyse it and be allowed a fair chance of solving the mystery
themselves. Then, about halfway through, or sometimes even during the
final act, one of the suspects usually dies, often because they have
inadvertently deduced the killer's identity and need silencing. In a few
of her novels, including
Death Comes as the End and
And Then There Were None, there are multiple victims. Finally,
the detective organises a meeting of all the suspects and slowly
denounces the guilty party, exposing several unrelated secrets along the
way, sometimes over the course of thirty or so pages. The murders are
often extremely ingenious, involving some convoluted piece of deception.
Christie's stories are also known for their taut atmosphere and
strong psychological suspense, developed from the deliberately slow pace
of her prose.
Seven stories are inspired by a nursery rhyme:
And Then There Were None by
Ten Little Indians;
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe;
Five Little Pigs by
This Little Piggy;
Crooked House by
There Was a Crooked Man;
A Pocket Full of Rye by
Sing a Song of Sixpence;
Hickory Dickory Dock by
Hickory Dickory Dock, and
Three Blind Mice by
Three Blind Mice.
Twice, the murderer surprisingly turns out to be the
unreliable narrator of the story.
In six stories, Christie allows the murderer to escape justice (and
in the case of the last three, implicitly almost approves of their
crimes); these are
The Witness for the Prosecution,
Five Little Pigs,
The Man in the Brown Suit,
Murder on the Orient Express,
Curtain and
The Unexpected Guest. (When Christie adapted Witness into
a stage play, she lengthened the ending so that the murderer was also
killed.) There are also numerous instances where the killer is not
brought to justice in the legal sense but instead dies (death usually
being presented as a more 'sympathetic' outcome), for example
Death Comes as the End,
And Then There Were None,
Death on the Nile,
Dumb Witness,
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,
Crooked House,
Appointment with Death,
The
Hollow,
Nemesis,
Cat Among the Pigeons, and
The Secret Adversary. In some cases this is with the collusion
of the detective involved. In some stories the question of whether
formal justice will be done is left unresolved, such as
Five Little Pigs, and arguably
Ordeal by Innocence.
On an edition of
Desert Island Discs in 2007,
Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote
her books up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely
suspect was, after which she would then go back and make the necessary
changes to "frame" that person.[67]
John Curran's Agatha Christie: The Secret Notebooks describes
different working methods for every book in her autobiography, thus
contradicting this claim.
The first Hercule Poirot began with tram passengers and Belgian
refugees.
Man in the Brown Suit started with Belcher from the world tour.
Murder on the Links began with news from France, a wife
debunked, who claimed intruders tied her up and murdered her husband.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd killer was suggested by
brother-in-law James Watt.
The Big Four, helped by Archie's brother Cambell, was a stop-gap
collection of Sketch magazine stories, for money when her husband left.
Critical reception
A collection of paperback books by Christie.
The world's best-selling mystery writer, and often referred to as the
"Queen of Crime", Agatha Christie is considered a master of suspense,
plotting, and characterisation.[73][74][75]
Some critics however regarded Christie's plotting abilities as
considerably exceeding her literary ones. The novelist
Raymond Chandler criticised her in his essay, "The
Simple Art of Murder", and the American literary critic
Edmund Wilson was dismissive of Christie and the detective fiction
genre generally in his
New Yorker essay, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?".[76]
Others have criticised Christie on political grounds, particularly
with respect to her conversations about and portrayals of
Jews.
Christopher Hitchens, in his autobiography, describes a dinner with
Christie and her husband, Max Mallowan, that became increasingly
uncomfortable as the night wore on, where "The anti-Jewish flavour of
the talk was not to be ignored or overlooked, or put down to heavy
humour or generational prejudice. It was vividly unpleasant".[77]
Stereotyping
Christie occasionally inserted stereotyped descriptions of characters
into her work, particularly before the end of the Second World War (when
such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), and particularly
in regard to
Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans. For example, in the first
editions of the collection
The Mysterious Mr Quin (1930), in the short story "The Soul of
the Croupier," she described "Hebraic men with hook-noses wearing rather
flamboyant jewellery"; in later editions the passage was edited to
describe "sallow men" wearing same. To contrast with the more
stereotyped descriptions, Christie often characterised the "foreigners"
in such a way as to make the reader understand and sympathise with them;
this is particularly true of her Jewish characters, who are seldom
actually criminals. (See, for example, the character of Oliver Manders
in
Three Act Tragedy.)[78]
Most often, she is lovingly affectionate or teasing with her
prejudices. After four years of war-torn London, Christie hoped to
return some day to Syria, which she described as "gentle fertile country
and its simple people, who know how to laugh and how to enjoy life; who
are idle and gay, and who have dignity, good manners, and a great sense
of humour, and to whom death is not terrible."
After trouble with an incompetent Swiss French nursery helper
Marcelle for toddler Rosalind, she decides "Scottish preferred ... good
with the young. The French were hopeless disciplinarians ... Germans
good and methodical, but it was not German that I really wanted Rosalind
to learn. The Irish were gay but made trouble in the house; the English
were of all kinds"
She proposes this, after the fact, knowing the chosen Charlotte lasts
decades.
Her book titles, changed by American publishers, for example
Ten Little Niggers to
Ten Little Indians, were kept the same across the Atlantic,
after bushels of fan mail.
Archaeology
Christie had always had an interest in archaeology.
The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly
appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic.
The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled
me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself.
— Christie , An Autobiography (London, 1984), p. 389
On a trip to the excavation site at
Ur in 1930, she
met her future husband,
Sir Max Mallowan, a distinguished archaeologist, but her fame as an
author far surpassed his fame in archaeology.
Prior to meeting Mallowan, Christie had not had any extensive brushes
with archaeology, but once the two married they made sure to only go to
sites where they could work together.
Many years ago, when I was once saying sadly to Max it was a
pity I couldn't have taken up archaeology when I was a girl, so
as to be more knowledgeable on the subject, he said, 'Don't you
realize that at this moment you know more about prehistoric
pottery than any woman in England?
— Christie , An Autobiography (1984), p. 546
While accompanying Mallowan on countless archaeological trips
(spending up to 3–4 months at a time in
Syria and
Iraq at
excavation sites at
Ur,
Ninevah,
Tell Arpachiyah,
Chagar Bazar,
Tell
Brak, and
Nimrud),
Christie not only wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed
work to the archaeological sites, more specifically to the
archaeological restoration and labeling of ancient exhibits which
includes tasks such as cleaning and conserving delicate ivory pieces,
reconstructing pottery, developing photos from early excavations which
later led to taking photographs of the site and its findings, and taking
field notes.[85]
So as to not influence the funding of the archaeological excavations,
Christie would always pay for her own board and lodging and her travel
expenses, and supported excavations as an anonymous sponsor.[86]
After WW2, she chronicled her time in Syria with fondness in "Come
Tell Me How You Live". Anecdotes, memories, funny episodes, are strung
in a rough timeline, with more emphasis on eccentric characters, lovely
scenery, than factual accuracy.
From 8 November 2001 to 24 March 2002,
The British Museum had an exhibit named Agatha Christie and
Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia, which presented the secret life
of Agatha Christie and the influences of archaeology in her life and
works.[88]
Archaeological influences in her writing
Many of the settings for Agatha Christie's books were directly
inspired by the many archaeological field seasons spent in the Middle
East on the sites managed by her second husband Max Mallowan. Her time
spent at the many locations featured in her books is very apparent by
the extreme detail in which she describes them. One such site featured
in her books is the temple site of
Abu Simbel in
Death on the Nile, as well as the great detail in which she
describes life at the dig site in
Murder in Mesopotamia.
Characters
Of the characters in her books, Christie has often showcased the
archaeologist and experts in Middle Eastern cultures and artifacts. Most
notably are the characters of Dr. Eric Leidner in Murder in
Mesopotamia, Signor Richetti in Death on the Nile, and many minor
characters in They Came to Baghdad were archaeologists.
More indirectly, Christie's famous character of
Hercule Poirot can be compared to an archaeologist in his detailed
scrutiny of all facts both large and small. Cornelius Holtorf, an
academic archaeologist, describes an archaeologist as a detective as one
of the key themes of archaeology in popular culture.
He describes an archaeologist as a professional detective of the past
who has the ability to reveal secrets for the greater of society.
Holtorf's description of the archaeologist as a detective is very
similar to Christie's Poirot who is hugely observant and is very careful
to look at the small details as they often impart the most information.
Many of Christie's detective characters show some archaeological traits
through their careful attention to clues and artifacts alike.
Miss Marple, another of Christie's most famous characters, shares
these characteristics of careful deduction though the attention paid to
the small clues.
Spirituality
Christie's life within the archaeological world not only shaped her
settings and characters for her books but also in the issues she
highlights. One of the stronger influences is her love of the mystical
and mysterious. Many of Christie's books and short stories both set in
the Middle East and back in England have a decidedly otherworldly
influence in which religious sects, sacrifices, ceremony, and seances
play a part. Such stories include "The Hound of Death" and "the Idol
House of Astarte". This theme was greater strengthened by Christie's
time spent in the Middle East where she was consistently surrounded by
the religious temples and spiritual history of the towns and cities they
were excavating in Mallowan's archaeological work.
Travel as
adventure
During Christie and Mallowan's time in the Middle East, along with
their time spent among the many tombs, temples, and museums, there was
also a large amount of time spent traveling to and from Mallowan's
sites. The travelling involved in the archaeology had a large influence
on Christie's writing, which is often reflected as some type of
transportation playing a part in her murderer's schemes. The large
amount of travel done by Christie and Mallowan has not only made for a
great writing theme, as shown in her famous novel
The Murder on the Orient Express, but also tied into the idea of
archaeology as an adventure that has become so important in today's
popular culture as described by Cornelius Holtorf in his book
Archaeology is a Brand.[90]
Popular novels with heavy archaeological influences
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
- Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia is the most
archaeologically influenced of all her novels as it is set in the
Middle East at an archaeological dig site and associated expedition
house. The Main characters included an archaeologist, Dr. Eric
Leidner, as well as his wife, multiple specialists, assistants and
the men working on the site. The novel is most noted for its careful
description of the dig site and house, which showed the author had
spent much of her own time in very similar situations herself. The
characters in this book in particular are also based on
archaeologists Christie knew from her personal experiences on
excavations sites.
Appointment with Death (1938)
- Appointment with Death is set in
Jerusalem and its surrounding area. The death itself occurs at
an old cave site and offers some very descriptive details of sites
which Christie herself would have visited in order to write the
book.
Death on the Nile (1937)
- Death on the Nile takes place on a tour boat on the Nile.
Many archaeological sites are visited along the way and one of the
main characters is an archaeologist, Signor Richetti.
They Came to Baghdad (1951)
- They Came to Baghdad was inspired by Christie's own trips
to
Baghdad with Mallowan, and involves an archaeologist as the
heroine's love interest.
Portrayals of
Christie
Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and
television. Several biographical programs have been made, such as the
2004
BBC television programme entitled
Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures, in which she is portrayed
by
Olivia Williams,
Anna Massey, and
Bonnie Wright.
Christie has also been portrayed fictionally. Some of these have
explored and offered accounts of Christie's disappearance in 1926,
including the 1979 film
Agatha (with
Vanessa Redgrave, where she sneaks away to plan revenge against her
husband) and the
Doctor Who episode "The
Unicorn and the Wasp" (with
Fenella Woolgar, her disappearance being the result of her suffering
a temporary breakdown due to a brief psychic link being formed between
her and an alien). Others, such as 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak
Budapesten (not to be confused with the 1986 comedy by the same
name) create their own scenarios involving Christie's criminal skill.[91]
In the 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book, Christie herself (Dame
Peggy Ashcroft) murdered one of her fictional-turned-real
characters, Poirot. The heroine of Liar-Soft's 2008
visual novel
Shikkoku no Sharnoth: What a Beautiful Tomorrow, Mary Clarissa
Christie, is based on the real-life Christie. Christie features as a
character in Gaylord Larsen's Dorothy and Agatha and The
London Blitz Murders by Max Allan Collins.[92][93]
Christie's works
Adaptations
Film
Television
Agatha Christie's Poirot television series
Episodes of the television series
Agatha Christie's Poirot include:
Graphic novels
Euro Comics India began issuing a series of
graphic novel adaptations of Christie's work in 2007.
HarperCollins independently began issuing this series also in 2007.
In addition to the titles issued the following titles are also
planned for release:
Video games
Animation
In 2004 the Japanese broadcasting company
Nippon Hōsō
Kyōkai turned Poirot and Marple into animated characters in the
anime series
Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple,
introducing Mabel West (daughter of Miss Marple's mystery-writer nephew
Raymond West, a
canonical Christie character) and her duck Oliver as new characters.
Unpublished
material
-
Personal Call (supernatural radio play, featuring Inspector
Narracott who also appeared in The Sittaford Mystery; a
recording is in the
British Library Sound Archive)
- The Woman and the Kenite (horror; a translation, from an
Italian magazine of the 1920s: ,
http://agatha.hu/Dokumentumok/kenita.pdf
-
Butter In a Lordly Dish (horror/detective radio play,
adapted from The Woman and the Kenite)
- Being So Very Wilful (romantic)
- Snow Upon the Desert (romantic novel)[94]
- Stronger than Death (supernatural)[95]
- The Green Gate (supernatural)[95]
- The Greenshore Folly (novella featuring Hercule Poirot;
the basis for Dead Man's Folly)[96]
- The War Bride (supernatural)
- Eugenia and Eugenics (stage play)[95]
- Witchhazel (supernatural short story)[95]
- Someone at the Window (play adapted from short story The
Dead Harlequin)[95]
- Miss Perry (stage play)
Works by other authors based on Christie's works
Plays
adapted into novels
Charles Osborne
novelised three of Christie's plays:
These three novels are now available in the collection Murder In
Three Stages.
Works
adapted into plays
See also
Notes
-
^ The Harrogate
Hydropathic hotel, nowadays the Old Swan Hotel, was also
known as the Swan Hydro, because of its location on Swan Road,
on the site of an earlier Old Swan Hotel.[41]
-
^ Christie herself
hints at a nervous breakdown, saying to a woman with similar
symptoms "I think you had better be very careful; it is probably
the beginning of a nervous breakdown."[43]