A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
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Life and Works: Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), commonly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer of novels, short stories and plays. She also wrote romance novels under the name Mary Westmacott, but is best remembered for her 80 detective novels and her successful West End theatre plays. Her works, particularly featuring detectives Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian who relied on his keen grasp of logic to nab crooks, or Miss Jane Marple (partly inspired by her maternal grandmother), have given her the title the 'Queen of Crime' and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the genre. Christie has been called — by the Guinness Book of World Records, among others — the best-selling writer of books of all time and the best-selling writer of any kind, along with William Shakespeare. Only the Bible is known to have outsold her collected sales of roughly four billion copies of novels. UNESCO states that she is currently the most translated individual author in the world. As an example of her broad appeal, she is the all-time best-selling author in France, with over 40 million copies sold in French (as of 2003) versus 22 million for Emile Zola, the nearest contender. Her stage play, The Mousetrap, holds the record for the longest initial run in the world, opening at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952, and as of 2008 is still running after more than 20,000 performances. Some of Christie's best-known works are Murder on the Orient Express (1934), The ABC Murders (1936), Death On The Nile (1937), And Then There Were None [also known as Ten Little Indians] (1945), Hickory Dickory Dock (1955), and Witness for the Prosecution (1954). From her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) to her last, Sleeping Murder (1976), Christie enjoyed a career that spanned over fifty years and her works have now sold into the billions. They have been translated to dozens of languages, inspired numerous other authors' works, and have been adapted to radio, the stage, and film. As well as a writer of crime mysteries, she also read stories for BBC Radio, wrote non-fiction, romances, plays, and poetry. Born in the family home Ashfield in Torquay, Devon, England on 15 September 1890, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was the youngest of the three children born to Clarissa 'Clara' Margaret née Boehmer (1855-1926) and American Frederick Alvah Miller (1846-1901), who died when Agatha was just ten years old. She never claimed United States citizenship. The shy and sensitive Agatha, who was very close to her mother, had an older sister, Margaret 'Madge' (1879-1950) and brother Louis 'Monty' Montant (1880-1929). The family attended All Saint's Church where Agatha was baptised. Her mother autorbusght her at home, encouraging her to write at a very young age. At the age of 16 she went to Mrs Dryden's finishing school in Paris to study singing and piano. Christie was an accomplished pianist but her stage fright and shyness prevented her from pursuing a career in music. In her books Christie seldom referred to music, although her detectives, Poirot and Miss Marple, show interest in opera and Poirot sings in The A.B.C. Murders (1936) a World War I song. On 24 December 1914, at the age of twenty-four, Christie married Royal Flying Corps pilot Archie Christie, with whom she would have a daughter, Rosalind (1919-2004). During World War I Agatha worked as a nurse, tending to the ill and injured, many who were displaced Belgians. Their bewilderment and personal sorrows affected her deeply. She amassed a great deal of knowledge about sicknesses and poisons such as strychnine and ricin that she often featured in her novels. Around this time she also started writing her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, an immediate best-seller. The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 30 of Christie's novels and 50 short stories. Poirot, a former policeman, was forced to flee his country after the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. His assistant Captain Hastings married in the early 1930s and Poirot settled to London's Whitehaven Mansions. Poirot is short - only five feet four inches tall. He has waxed moustache, egg-shaped head and small feet. Poirot first appeared on screen in The Alibi (1931). It was based on The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd (1926), which was partly inspired by Anton Chekhov's novel The Shooting Party (1884-1885). Her other well known character, Miss Marple, an elderly spinster, was a typical English character, but when Poirot used logic and rational methods, Marple relied on her feminine sensitivity and empathy to solve crimes. She was born and lived in the village of St. Mary Mead. Both Poirot and Marple did not have any family life, but Poirot also travelled much. Marple was featured in 17 novels, the first being Murder at the Vicarage (1930) and the last Sleeping Murder (1976). She was reportedly based on the author's own grandmother. Miss Marple made her first screen appearance in 1961 in Murder She Said, starring Margaret Rutherford. It was based on the novel 4.50 From Paddington (1957). It was followed by Murder at the Galop (1963), Murder Ahoy (1964), and Murder Most Foul (1964), all directed by George Pollock. The BBC TV series starring Joan Hickson ran 1984-87. In 1926, profoundly grieving the death of her mother, Christie created some mystery of her own, disappearing for ten days, causing great interest in the press. Her car was found in a chalk pit in Newland's Corner, Surrey. She was eventually found staying at the Swan Hydro (now the Old Swan hotel) in Harrogate under the name of the woman with whom her husband had recently admitted to having an affair. She claimed to have suffered a nervous breakdown and a fugue state caused by the death of her mother and her husband's infidelity. Opinions are still divided as to whether this was a publicity stunt. A 1979 film, Agatha, starring Vanessa Redgrave as Christie, recounted a fictionalised version of the disappearance. In 1928, Archie divorced Agatha. She then set off on her first of many trips to the Middle East, travelling on the famed Orient Express from Calais, France to Baghdad, Iraq, then on to the ancient city of Ur in Mesopotamia. It was on her second trip there she met her future husband, archaeologist Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, (1904-1978). Mallowan was 14 years younger than Christie, and a Roman Catholic, while she was of the Anglican faith. They were married in Scotland on 11 September 1930. She often accompanied him on digs as a member of the team, photographing and cataloguing finds. Their marriage was happy in the early years, and endured despite Mallowan's many affairs in later life, notably with Barbara Parker, whom he married in 1977, the year after Christie's death. In 1960 Max was honoured as Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and in 1968 knighted for his archaeological work. Christie herself won many awards and honours in her life-time and in 1971 she received England's highest honor, the Order of the British Empire, Dame Commander. 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, Devon, where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel, Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railroad. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author. During World War II, Christie wrote two novels intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, respectively. They were Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case and Sleeping Murder. 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. Christie's characters are usually well-to-do people. Often the comfortable lifestyle of his characters is undermined by financial problems, which lead to murder. Although her villains use very complicated plans, they are not impossible, but are firmly grounded on the everyday reality. In many stories the reader is fooled to suspect an innocent character, but most innovative Christie was when she revealed the guilty party: it has been the narrator, a group of people, a serial killer who tries to hide an obvious motive for his killing one of the victims, and so forth. Christie's world view was conservative and rational, but there is always a place for accidents. Christie gives always a logical explanation for crimes, but society is not blamed. Murder is not a sign of degeneration of middle-class values. After the crime is solved, life continues happily. Although Christie's writing career spanned over six decades, she was conscious of social change without fixating on the period between the two World Wars. In 1974 Christie appeared for the last time in public on opening night for her play Murder on the Orient Express. When she was not travelling the world, her and Max's home in England was in the town of Wallingford, Oxfordshire, where she died peacefully on 12 January 1976, at age 85. Max survived her by two years. They now rest together in the Parish Church cemetery of St. Mary's in Cholsey, Oxfordshire. |
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