❝Very few of us are what we seem.❞
- Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, Miller; became, and remains, the best-selling novelist of all time. She is an English writer best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, as well as the world's longest-running play – The Mousetrap. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation.
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890 in Torquay, Devon, South West England into a comfortably well off middle class family. What made her upbringing unusual, even for its time, was that she was home schooled largely by her father, an American. Her mother, Clara, who was an excellent storyteller, did not want her to learn to read until she was eight but Agatha, bored and as the only child at home (she was a much loved "afterthought" with two older siblings) taught herself to read by the age of five.
Educated at home by her mother, Christie began writing detective fiction while working as a nurse during World War I. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed in 1920 when 'The Mysterious Affairs of Styles' featuring detective Hercule Poirot, was published. Her first novel that introduced an eccentric and egotistic Belgian detective; Poirot that also reappeared in about 25 novels and many short stories before returning to Styles, where, in Curtain (1975), he died.
The elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple, her other principal detective figure, first appeared in Murder at the Vicarage (1930). Christie's first major recognition came with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), which was followed by some 75 novels that usually made best-seller lists and were serialized in popular magazines in England and the United States.
Witness for the Prosecution (1953), which, like many of her works, was adapted into a successful film (1957). Other notable film adaptation included And Then There Were None (1939; film 1945), Murder on the Orient Express (1933; film 1974 and 2017), Death on the Nile (1937; film 1978), and The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side (1952; film [The Mirror Crack'd] 1980). Her works were also adapted for television.
In 1926 Christie's mother died, and her husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, requested a divorce. In a move she never fully explained, Christie disappeared and, after several highly publicized days, was discovered registered in a hotel under the name of the woman her husband wished to marry. In 1930 Christie married the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan; thereafter she spent several months each year on expeditions in Iraq and Syria with him.
In 1946, Christie said of herself: "My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, and cinemas. I dislike the taste of alcohol and do not like smoking. I do like sun, sea, flowers, travelling, strange foods, sports, concerts, theatres, pianos, and doing embroidery."
Christie's works of fiction contain some character seen as objectionable in modern times, but in real life, many of her biases were positive. After four years of war-torn London, Christie hoped to return some day to Syria, which she described as a "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".
She also wrote nondetective novels, such as Absent in the Spring (1944), under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Her Autobiography (1977) appeared posthumously. She was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the in 1971.
Christie died peacefully on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her home at Winterbrook House. When her death was announced, two West End theatres – the St. Martin's, where The Mousetrap was playing, and the Savoy, which was home to a revival of Murder at the Vicarage – dimmed their outside lights in her honour.
At the time of her death in 1976, "she was the best-selling novelist in history."
Discussion Topic:
Have you read Agatha Christie stories?
Which one you thought were better detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple?
Always open to additional questions and comments on about Agatha Christie and her works.
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