2. Christie's reputation as "The Queen of Crime" was
built upon the large number of classic motifs that she
introduced, or for which she provided the most
famous example. Christie built these tropes into what
is now considered classic mystery structure: a murder
is committed, there are multiple suspects who are all
concealing secrets, and the detective gradually
uncovers these secrets over the course of the story,
discovering the most shocking twists towards the end.
Culprits in Christie's mysteries have included
children, policemen, narrators, already deceased
individuals, and sometimes comprise no known
suspects (And Then There Were None) or all of the
suspects (Murder on the Orient Express).
The Queen of Crime
3. The Guinness Book of World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time.
Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come
third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeare's
works and the Bible. Half of the sales are of English language editions, and the other half in
translation. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual
author – having been translated into at least 103 languages. 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.
In 2012, Christie was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to
appear in a new version of his most famous artwork – the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band album cover – to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he
most admires
The Guinnes Book of World Records best-selling ever
4. Agatha Christie was an English detective novelist and playwright. She wrote some 75 novels, including 66
detective novels and 14 short story collections. Christie is perhaps the world’s most famous mystery writer
and is one of the best-selling novelists of all time. Her works are reportedly outsold only by Shakespeare and
the Bible.
Agatha Christie began writing detective fiction while working as a nurse during World War I (1914–18). She
began her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1916 and published it after the end of the war, in
1920. The novel introduced Hercule Poirot, one of Christie’s most enduring characters.
Agatha Christie’s most famous novels include And Then There Were None (1939), Murder on the Orient
Express (1933), and The ABC Murders (1936). Her novels have sold more than 100 million copies and have
been translated into some 100 languages. Many of Christie’s works have been adapted for television and film.
After her husband, Col. Archibald Christie, asked for a divorce, Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared for
nearly two weeks. On December 4, 1926, her car was found abandoned on a roadside. It was reported that
she committed suicide. Detectives turned to her manuscripts for clues. Eventually, Christie was found alive at a
spa in Yorkshire, England.
Agatha Christie
5. Agatha Christie, in full Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, née Miller, (born September 15,
1890, Torquay, Devon, England—died January 12, 1976, Wallingford, Oxfordshire), English
detective novelist and playwright whose books have sold more than 100 million copies and
have been translated into some 100 languages.
Educated at home by her mother, Christie began writing detective fiction while working as a
nurse during World War I. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), introduced
Hercule Poirot, her eccentric and egotistic Belgian detective; Poirot 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.
Agatha Christie
6. Christie’s plays include The Mousetrap (1952), which set a world record for the longest
continuous run at one theatre (8,862 performances—more than 21 years—at the Ambassadors
Theatre, London) and then moved to another theatre, and Witness for the Prosecution
(1953), which, like many of her works, was adapted into a successful film (1957). Other
notable film adaptations include Murder on the Orient Express (1933; film 1974 and 2017)
and Death on the Nile (1937; film 1978). 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. She
also wrote romantic nondetective novels, such as Absent in the Spring (1944), under the
pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Her Autobiography (1977) appeared posthumously. She was
created a Dame of the British Empire in 1971.
The Mousetrap 1952
7. 22,461st performance
(St Martin's Theatre –
November 2006)
The Mousetrap is a murder
mystery play by Agatha
Christie. The Mousetrap
opened in London's West
End in 1952, and has been
running continuously since
then. The longest-running
West End show, it has by far
the longest initial run of any
play in history, with its
25,000th performance taking
place on 18 November 2012
8. Hercule Poirot, fictional Belgian detective featured in a series of novels by Agatha Christie.
Short, somewhat vain, with brilliantined hair and a waxed moustache, the aging bachelor
Poirot enjoys his creature comforts. Relying on his “little grey cells” to solve crimes, Poirot is
notably meticulous in his personal habits and his professional methodology. He appears in
Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), and in dozens of subsequent
books, including some of Christie’s best-loved works, such as Murder on the Orient Express
(1933) and Death on the Nile (1937). Poirot’s final appearance and death occur in the novel
Curtain (1975). Christie was said to have based Poirot’s mannerisms on her observation of
World War I Belgian refugees.
Poirot was featured in a number of film adaptations, played memorably by such actors as
Tony Randall (The Alphabet Murders, 1965), Albert Finney (Murder on the Orient
Express, 1974), and Peter Ustinov (Death on the Nile, 1978; Evil Under the Sun, 1982; and
Appointment with Death, 1988; as well as several made-for-television movies). In the 21st
century, the role was also given an exquisite touch by actor David Suchet in the television
series Agatha Christie: Poirot. Suchet was also featured as Poirot in video games.
Hercule Poirot
9. Hercule Poirot
David Suchet as Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Poirot
Hercule is a fictional Belgian detective,
created by Agatha Christie. Poirot is
one of Christie's most famous and
long-running characters, appearing in
33 novels, one play (Black Coffee), and
more than 50 short stories published
between 1920 and 1975.
Poirot has been portrayed on radio, in
film and on television by various
actors, including Austin Trevor, John
Moffatt, Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov,
Ian Holm, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina,
Orson Welles, David Suchet, Kenneth
Branagh and John Malkovich.
10. Miss Marple is a fictional character in Agatha Christie's crime novels
and short stories. Jane Marple is an elderly spinster who lives in the
village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur consulting detective.
She is one of the best known of Christie's characters and has been
portrayed numerous times on screen. Her first appearance was in a
short story published in The Royal Magazine in December 1927, "The
Tuesday Night Club", which later became the first chapter of The
Thirteen Problems (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel
was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930 and her last appearance
was in Sleeping Murder in 1976.
Miss Marple
11. Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 –
12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story
collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss
Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play The Mousetrap and six romances
under the pen name Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was appointed a Dame Commander of
the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.
Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. She served in a
Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches.
She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed when
The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 featuring Hercule Poirot. During the
Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital,
London, acquiring a good knowledge of poisons which feature in many of her novels.
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie Lady Mallowan
12. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her
novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works
come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind
only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she
remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least
103 languages. 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. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds
the world record for longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in
the West End on 25 November 1952, and as of April 2019 was still running after
more than 27,000 performances.
Guinness World Records lists Christie
13. Life and career
Childhood and adolescence: 1890–1910
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890 into a wealthy upper-middle-
class family in Torquay, Devon. She was the youngest of three children born to Frederick
Alvah ("Fred") Miller, "a gentleman of substance", and his wife Clarissa Margaret ("Clara")
Miller née Boehmer
Christie's mother Clara was born in Dublin in 1854 to Lieutenant (later Captain) Frederick Boehmer (91st
Regiment of Foot) and his second wife Mary Ann Boehmer née West. Boehmer died aged 49 of bronchitis
(although biographers often claim he was killed in a riding accident) in Jersey in April 1863, leaving his
widow to raise Clara and her three brothers alone on a meagre income. Two weeks after Boehmer's death,
Mary's sister Margaret West married widowed dry goods merchant Nathaniel Frary Miller, a U.S. citizen. To
assist Mary financially, the newlyweds agreed to foster nine-year old Clara. The family settled in Timperley,
Cheshire. Margaret and Nathaniel had no children together, but Nathaniel had a seventeen-year-old son,
Fred Miller, from his previous marriage. Fred was born in New York City and travelled extensively after
leaving his Swiss boarding school. He and Clara eventually formed a romantic attachment and were married
in St Peter's Church, Notting Hill, in April 1878
Her Life
14. Fred and Clara's first child, Margaret Frary ("Madge"), was born in Torquay in 1879, where the
couple were renting lodgings. Their second child, Louis Montant ("Monty"), was born in
Morristown, New Jersey, in 1880 while they were making an extended visit to the United
States. When Fred's father died in 1869, he left Clara £2000; they used this money to purchase
the leasehold of a villa in Torquay named Ashfield in which to raise their family. It was here
that their third and final child, Agatha, was born in 1890.
Christie as a girl, date unknown
Christie described her childhood as "very happy". She was surrounded by a series of strong and
independent women from an early age. She lived primarily in Devon, but made occasional
visits to the homes of her step-grandmother/great-aunt Margaret Miller in Ealing and maternal
grandmother Mary Boehmer in Bayswater. One year of her childhood was spent abroad with
her family, in the French Pyrenees, Paris, Dinard, and Guernsey.
Fred and Clara
15. Christie was raised in a household with various esoteric beliefs
and, like her siblings, believed that her mother Clara was a psychic
with the ability of second sight. Christie's sister Madge had been
sent to Roedean School in Sussex for her education, but their
mother insisted that Christie receive a home education. As a
result, her parents were responsible for teaching her to read and
write and to master basic arithmetic, a subject she particularly
enjoyed. They also taught her music, and she learned to play both
the piano and the mandolin. According to one biographer, Clara
believed that Christie should not learn to read until she was eight.
However, thanks to her own curiosity, Christie taught herself to
read much earlier. One of the earliest known photographs of
Christie depicts her as a little girl with her first dog, named George
Washington by her patriotic father but which she called Ton
Christie was raised…
16. Christie was 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. In April 1901, at
age 10, she wrote her first poem, "The cowslip".
Although she devoted much time to her pets, Christie spent much of her childhood apart
from other children. She eventually made friends with a group of other girls in Torquay,
noting that "one of the highlights of my existence" was her appearance with them in a youth
production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard, in which she played the
hero, Colonel Fairfax. This was her last operatic role for, as she later wrote, "an experience
that you really enjoyed should never be repeated.
Christie liked to read
17. By 1901, Christie's father's health had deteriorated, due to what he believed were heart
problems. Fred died in November 1901 from pneumonia and chronic kidney disease.[32]
The family's financial situation had by this time declined significantly. Christie and her
mother Clara continued to live in their Torquay home. Christie's sister Madge married the
year after their father's death and moved to Cheadle, (historic county of) Cheshire. Christie's
brother Monty was overseas, serving in a British regiment. Christie later claimed that her
father's death, occurring when she was 11 years old, marked the end of her childhood.
In 1902, Christie began attending Miss Guyer's Girls' School in Torquay but found it
difficult to adjust to the disciplined atmosphere. In 1905, she was sent to Paris where she
was educated in three pensions – Mademoiselle Cabernet's, Les Marroniers, and then Miss
Dryden's – the last of which served primarily as a finishing school
Her Father Fred died 1901
18. Early literary attempts and the First World War: 1910–1919
After completing her education, Christie returned to England and found her mother ailing.
They decided to spend time together in the warmer climate of Cairo, then a regular tourist
destination for wealthy Britons. They stayed for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel.
Christie attended many social functions and particularly enjoyed watching polo. She visited
ancient Egyptian monuments such as the Great Pyramid of Giza, but did not exhibit the
great interest in archaeology and Egyptology that became prominent in her later years.
Returning to Britain, she continued her social activities, writing and performing in amateur
theatricals. She also helped put on a play called The Blue Beard of Unhappiness with
female friends. Her writing extended to both poetry and music. Some early works saw
publication, but she decided against focusing on writing or music as future professions
1910 - 1919
19. Christie wrote her first short story, The House of Beauty (an
early version of her later-published story The House of
Dreams, while recovering in bed from an undisclosed illness.
This was about 6,000 words on the topic of "madness and
dreams", a subject of fascination for her. One of her biographers
has commented that, despite "infelicities of style", the story was
nevertheless "compelling". Other stories followed, most of them
illustrating her interest in spiritualism and the paranormal.
These included "The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely
God". Magazines rejected all her early submissions, made under
pseudonyms (including Mac Miller, Nathaniel Miller, and
Sydney West), although some submissions were revised and
published later, often with new title
Agatha Christies first short story (The House of Beauty)
20. Christie then set her first novel, Snow Upon the Desert, in Cairo and drew from her recent
experiences in that city, writing under the pseudonym Monosyllaba. She was disappointed
when the various publishers she contacted all declined. Clara suggested that her daughter ask
for advice from a family friend and neighbour, the writer Eden Philpotts, who obliged her
enquiry, encouraged her writing, and sent her an introduction to his own literary agent,
Hughes Massie, who rejected Snow Upon the Desert and suggested a second novel.
Meanwhile, her social activities expanded. She entered into short-lived relationships with
four separate men and an engagement with another. She then met Archibald Christie at a
dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke, about 12 miles (19 kilometres) from
Torquay. Archie was born in India, the son of a barrister in the Indian Civil Service. He was
an army officer who was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in April 1913. The couple
quickly fell in love. Upon learning that he would be stationed in Farnborough, Archie
proposed marriage, and Agatha accepted
First Novel (Snow Upon Desert)
21. With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914,
Archie was sent to France to fight the German forces. They
married on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel
Church, Clifton, Bristol, which was close to the home of his
mother and stepfather, while Archie was on home leave. Rising
through the ranks, he was eventually stationed back to Britain in
September 1918 as a colonel in the Air Ministry. Christie
involved herself in the war effort as a member of the Voluntary
Aid Detachment of the Red Cross. From October 1914 to May
1915, then from June 1916 to September 1918, she worked a
total of 3400 hours in the Town Hall Red Cross Hospital,
Torquay, first as a nurse (unpaid) then as a dispenser (at £16 a
year from 1917) after qualifying as an apothecaries' assistant. Her
war service ended when Archie was reassigned to London, and
they rented a flat in St. John's Wood
1914 - 1918
22. First novels and Poirot: 1919–1926
Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins's The
Woman in White and The Moonstone, as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock
Holmes stories. She wrote her own detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring
Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian police officer noted for his twirly large "magnificent
moustaches" and egg-shaped head. Poirot had taken refuge in Britain after Germany invaded
Belgium. Christie's inspiration for the character stemmed from real Belgian refugees who
were living in Torquay and the Belgian soldiers whom she helped to treat as a volunteer
nurse in Torquay during the First World War. She began working on The Mysterious Affair
at Styles in 1916, writing much of it on Dartmoor. Her original manuscript was rejected by
such publishing companies as Hodder and Stoughton and Methuen. After keeping the
submission for several months, John Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, provided
that Christie change the ending. She did so, and signed a contract which she later felt was
exploitative. It was finally published in 1920
First Novels and Poirot 1919 - 1926
23.
24. Christie, meanwhile, settled into married life, giving
birth to her only child, Rosalind Margaret Clarissa,
in August 1919 at Ashfield Archie left the Air Force
at the end of the war and started working in the City
financial sector at a relatively low salary, though they
still employed a maid. Her second novel, The Secret
Adversary (1922), featured a new detective couple
Tommy and Tuppence, again published by The
Bodley Head. It earned her £50. A third novel again
featured Poirot, Murder on the Links (1923), as did
short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor
of The Sketch magazine.
Only child Rosalind
25. In 1922, the Christies joined an around-the-world promotional tour for the British Empire
Exhibition, led by Major Ernest Belcher. Leaving their daughter with Agatha's mother and
sister, in ten months they travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and
Canada. They learned to surf prone in South Africa; then, in Waikiki, they were among the
first Britons to surf standing up
Following their return to England, Archie resumed work in the City, while Christie
continued to work hard at her writing. After a series of apartments in London, they moved to
the country, eventually purchasing a house in Sunningdale, Berkshire, which they renamed
Styles after the mansion in Christie's first detective novel.
Christie's mother died in April 1926. They had been exceptionally close, and the loss sent
Christie into a deep depression
Around The World tour 1922
26. Disappearance: 1926
Daily Herald, 15 December 1926, announcing that
Christie had been found
In August 1926, Archie asked Christie for a divorce.
He had fallen in love with Nancy Neele, who had
been a friend of Major Belcher. On 3 December
1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie announced his
plan to spend the weekend with friends,
unaccompanied by his wife. Late that evening,
Christie disappeared from her home. Her Morris
Cowley car was found at Newlands Corner, perched
above a chalk quarry with an expired driving licence
and clothes.
Agatha Christie Disappearance 1926
27. The disappearance caused a public outcry. Home secretary William Joynson-Hicks
pressured police, and a newspaper offered a £100 reward. Over a thousand police officers,
15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes scoured the rural landscape. Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find her. Christie's disappearance was
featured on the front page of The New York Times. Despite the extensive manhunt, she was
not found for 10 days. On 14 December 1926, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic
Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Tressa Neele (the surname of her
husband's lover) from "Capetown S.A." (South Africa). The next day, Christie left for her
sister's residence at Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered "in guarded hall, gates
locked, telephone cut off, and callers turned away."
Mrs Tressa Neele a new alias
28. Christie's autobiography makes no reference to the disappearanceTwo doctors diagnosed her
as suffering from "an unquestionable genuine loss of memoryyet opinion remains divided
over the reason for her disappearance. Some believe that she disappeared during a fugue
state, including her biographer Janet Morgan. In contrast, Jared Cade's research led him to
conclude that Christie deliberately planned the event to embarrass her husband, but did not
anticipate the public melodrama that resulted Laura Thompson provides the alternative view
that Christie disappeared during a nervous breakdown, conscious of her actions but not in
emotional control of herself Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a
publicity stunt or an attempt to frame her husband for murder.
Public reactions negative
30. Christie's room at the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, where she wrote
Murder on the Orient Express
In January 1927, Christie, looking "very pale", sailed with her daughter and secretary to Las
Palmas, Canary Islands, to "complete her convalescence,] returning three months
laterChristie petitioned for divorce and was granted a decree nisi against her husband in
April 1928 which was made absolute in October 1928. Archie married Nancy Neele a week
later. Christie retained custody of their daughter Rosalind and the Christie surname for her
writing. During their marriage, she published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a
number of short stories in magazines
Some years later, reflecting on the whole period, Christie said, "So, after illness, came
sorrow, despair and heartbreak. There is no need to dwell on it
Second marriage and later life: 1927–1976
31. Max Mallowan
Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, CBE (6 May 1904 – 19 August 1978) was a prominent
British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history. He was the second
husband of Dame Agatha Christie.
Life and work
Born Edgar Mallowan in Wandsworth on 6 May 1904, he was the son of Frederick
Mallowan and his wife Marguerite (née Duvivier), whose mother was mezzo-soprano
Marthe Duvivier. He was educated at Rokeby School and Lancing College (where he was a
contemporary of Evelyn Waugh) and studied classics at New College, Oxford.
Max's first wife, Lady Mallowan, known to millions as Dame Agatha Christie, died in 1976;
the following year, Mallowan married Barbara Hastings Parker, an archaeologist, who had
been his epigraphist at Nimrud and Secretary of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq.
32. Christie's room at
the Pera Palace
Hotel in Istanbul,
where she wrote
Murder on the
Orient Express
33. Some years later, reflecting on the whole period, Christie said, "So, after illness, came
sorrow, despair and heartbreak. There is no need to dwell on it.
In autumn 1928, Christie left England and took the (Simplon) Orient Express to Istanbul;
she subsequently went on to Baghdad. In Iraq, she became friends with archaeologist
Leonard Woolley and his wife, who invited her to return to their dig in February 1930. On
that second trip, she met a young archaeologist 13 years her junior, Max Mallowan. In a
1977 interview, Mallowan recounted his first meeting with Christie, when he took her and a
group of tourists on a tour of his expedition site in Iraq. Christie and Mallowan married in
September 1930 Their marriage was happy and lasted until Christie's death in 1976
1928 – 1930 Christie and Mallowan married
34. Christie frequently used settings that were
familiar to her for her stories. She often
accompanied Mallowan on his
archaeological expeditions, and her travels
with him 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 raised. 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.
1934 Murder on the Orient Express
The Orient Express was
a long-distance passenger
train service created in
1883 by Compagnie
Internationale des
Wagons-Lits (CIWL).
35. 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, Cheshire, owned by her brother-in-law,
James Watts, basing at least two stories there: a 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 its servants and
grandeur being woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional
Chimneys, Stoneygates, and other houses in her stories are mostly
Abney Hall in various forms. "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 Styles, Chimneys, Stoneygates and the other houses in her
stories are mostly Abney in various forms.
1938 Summer Residence Abney Hall (Cheshire)
Abney Hall 1913
36. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery
Writers of America's Grand Master Award. Later the
year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar
Award from the MWA for best play. In 2013, The
Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime
novel ever by 600 writers of the Crime Writers'
Association. On 15 September 2015, coinciding with
her 125th birthday, And Then There Were None was
named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote
sponsored by the author's estate. Most of her books
and short stories have been adapted for television,
radio, video games, and comics, and more than 30
feature films have been based on her work.
1955
37. The agency's fears were allayed when Christie told her friend, the codebreaker Dilly Knox,
was stuck there on my way by train from Oxford to London and took revenge by giving the
name to one of my least lovable characters. In honour of her many literary works, she was
appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1956 New Year
Honours. The next year, she became the President of the Detection Club. In the 1971 New
Year Honours, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(DBE), three years after her husband had been knighted for his archaeological work in 1968.
They were one of the few married couples where both partners were honoured in their own
right. From 1968, owing to her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled Lady
Mallowan.
From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, although she continued to write. Recently,
using experimental tools of textual analysis, Canadian researchers have suggested that
Christie may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementia.
1956 - 1974
38.
39. Death on the Nile is a book of detective fiction by British writer Agatha
Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 1 November
1937 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The
UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at
$2.00. The full length novel was preceded (1937) by a short story with the
same title, but with Parker Pyne as the detective. The details of the short story's
plot are substantially different, though the settings and some of the characters
are very similar.
The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The action takes
place in Egypt, mostly on the Nile River.
Death om the Nile
43. Christie's family and family trusts, including James Prichard, continue to own the remaining
36% stake in Agatha Christie Limited, and remain associated with the company. James
Prichard became the company's chairman in October 2015.The development of Christie's
work continues apace. Mathew Prichard in his own right holds the copyright to some of his
grandmother's later literary works (including The Mousetrap).
In 1998, Booker sold a number of its non-food assets to focus on its core business. As part of
that, its shares in Agatha Christie Limited (at the time earning £2.1m annual revenue were
sold for £10m to Chorion, a major international media company whose portfolio of well-
known authors' works also included the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.
In February 2012, some years after a management buyout, Chorion found itself in financial
difficulties, and began to sell off its literary assets on the market. The process included the
sale of Chorion's 64% stake in Agatha Christie Limited to Acorn Media U.K. In 2014, RLJ
Entertainment Inc. acquired Acorn Media U.K., renamed it Acorn Media Enterprises, and
incorporated it as the RLJE UK development arm. RLJ Entertainment Inc. was founded by
American entrepreneur Robert L. Johnson.
Family Trust
44. In late February 2014, media reports stated that the BBC had
acquired exclusive TV rights to Christie's works in the UK
(previously associated with ITV) and made plans with Acorn's
co-operation to air new productions for the 125th anniversary
of Christie's birth in 2015. As part of that deal, the BBC
broadcast Partners in Crime and And Then There Were
None, both in 2015. Subsequent productions have included
The Witness for the Prosecution but plans to televise Ordeal
by Innocence at Christmas 2017 were delayed due to
controversy surrounding one of the cast members. The three-
part adaptation aired in April 2018. A three-part adaptation of
The A.B.C. Murders starring John Malkovich and Rupert
Grint began filming in June 2018 for later broadcast.
2014 BBC acquired exclusive TV rights
45. In 1938, the writer Agatha Christie and her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan,
were becoming disenchanted with their home in nearby Torquay. The town had changed in
the previous years, and the once uninterrupted view of the sea had from the house became
obstructed with new buildings. Looking around south Devon, Christie saw Greenways was
available. She had seen the property during her youth and always thought it "the most perfect
of the various properties on the Dart". In her later autobiography she wrote:
One day we saw that a house was up for sale that I had known when I was
young ... So we went over to Greenway, and very beautiful the house and
grounds were. A white Georgian house of about 1780 or 90, with woods
sweeping down to the Dart below, and a lot of fine shrubs and trees – the ideal
house, a dream house.
The house was occupied by Christie and Mallowan until their deaths in 1976 and 1978
respectively, and featured, under various guises, in several of Christie's novels. Christie's
daughter Rosalind Hicks and her husband Anthony lived in the house from 1968 until
Rosalind's death in 2004.
46. 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. Christie lived in Chelsea, first in
Cresswell Place and later in Sheffield Terrace. Both properties are now marked by blue
plaques. In 1934, she and Max Mallowan purchased Winterbrook House in
Winterbrook, a hamlet adjoining the small market town of Wallingford, then within the
bounds of Cholsey and in Berkshire.
Cresswell Place (Chelsea) and Winterbrook House
48. This was their main residence for the rest of their lives and the place where Christie did
much of her writing. This house, too, bears a blue plaque. Christie led a quiet life despite
being known in the town of Wallingford, where she was for many years President of the local
amateur dramatic society.
Christie at Schiphol, 17 September 1964
Around 1941–42, the British intelligence agency MI5 investigated Christie after a character
called Major Bletchley appeared in her 1941 thriller N or M?, which was about a hunt for a
pair of deadly fifth columnists in wartime England. MI5 was afraid that Christie had a spy in
Britain's top-secret codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park.
Wallingford
MI5 investegated Christie 1941 - 42
49. 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 Miss 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.
Christie became increasingly tired of Poirot, much as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had grown
weary of his character Sherlock Holmes. By the end of the 1930s, Christie wrote in her
diary that she was finding Poirot "insufferable", and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an
egocentric creep"
During the Second World War
50. In 1946, Christie said of herself: "My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, gramophones
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
The Agatha Christie Trust For Children commenced in 1969 and shortly after Christie's
death a charitable memorial fund was set up to "help two causes that she favoured: old
people and young children
Christie's obituary in The Times notes that "she never cared much for the cinema, or for
wireless and television". Further,
Dame Agatha's private pleasures were gardening – she won local prizes for horticulture –
and buying furniture for her various houses. She was a shy person: she disliked public
appearances: but she was friendly and sharp-witted to meet. By inclination as well as
breeding she belonged to the English upper middle-class. She wrote about, and for, people
like herself. That was an essential part of her charm.[
My chief dislikes are crowds-loud noises-gramphones
51. Christie died peacefully on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her home
Winterbrook House which was located in Winterbrook, Wallingford, Oxfordshire. At the
time of her death Winterbrook was still a part of the parish of Cholsey. She is buried in the
nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey, having chosen the plot for their final resting place
with her husband Sir Max some ten years before she died. The simple funeral service was
attended by about 20 newspaper and TV reporters, some having travelled from as far away as
South America.
Thirty wreaths adorned Christie's grave, including one from the cast of her long-running play
The Mousetrap and one sent 'on behalf of the multitude of grateful readers' by the
Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers.
She was survived by her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan; by her only child, Rosalind
Hicks (formerly Prichard, née Christieand by her only grandchild, Mathew T. Prichard.
Mallowan, who remarried in 1977, died in 1978 at age 74. He was interred next to Christie.
Agatha Christies death and burial
53. Christie's estate and subsequent ownership of works
Although Christie was rather unhappy about becoming "an employed wage slave",[30]:428 to
avoid future adverse tax implications she set up a private company, Agatha Christie Limited,
in 1955 to hold the rights to her works, and in about 1959 transferred her 278-acre home,
Greenway Estate, to her daughter Rosalind. In 1968, when Christie was almost 80 years old,
she sold a 51 % stake in Agatha Christie Limited (and therefore the works it owned) to
Booker Books (better known as Booker Author's Division), a subsidiary of the British food
and transport conglomerate Booker-McConnell (now Booker Group), the founder of the
Booker Prize for literature, which by 1977 had increased its stake to 64 Agatha Christie
Limited remains the owner of the worldwide rights for over 80 of Christie's novels and short
stories, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films
Agatha Christie sold 51 % stake in (A G Limited)
54. In the late 1950s, Christie had reputedly been earning around ₤100,000 per year but, as a
result of her tax planning, her will left only ₤106,683 net which went mostly to her husband
and daughter along with some smaller bequests. Her remaining 36% share of Agatha Christie
Limited was inherited by her daughter, Rosalind Hicks, who passionately preserved her
mother's works, image, and legacy until her own death 28 years later. The family's share of
the company allowed them to appoint 50% of the board and the chairman, and thereby to
retain a veto over new treatments, updated versions, and republications of her works
In 1993, Hicks founded the Agatha Christie Society and became its first president. In 2004
her obituary in The Telegraph commented that Hicks had been "determined to remain true
to her mother's vision and to protect the integrity of her creations" and disapproved of
"merchandising" activities. Upon Hicks's death on 28 October 2004, both the Society and the
Greenway Estate passed to Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard. After his parents' deaths,
Prichard donated Greenway and its contents to the National Trust. The Society is now
chaired and managed by Christie's great-grandson James Prichard.
Late 1950s earnings 100 000 Pund per year
55. Memorial to Christie in central London
Christie's first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920 and introduced
the detective Hercule Poirot, who became a long-running character in Christie's works,
appearing in 33 novels and 54 short stories.
Miss Jane Marple was introduced in the short-story collection The Thirteen Problems in
1927. Although Christie states that, "Miss Marple was not in any way a picture of my
grandmother; she was far more fussy and spinsterish than my grandmother ever was", her
autobiography does establish a firm connection between the fictional character and Christie's
maternal great-aunt Margaret Miller ("Auntie-Grannie") and her "Ealing cronies. Both Marple
and Miller "always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost
frightening accuracy, usually proved right. Marple appeared in 12 novels and 20 stories.
Works of fiction Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple
56. However, unlike Conan 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. She did marry off Poirot's companion Captain
Hastings in an attempt to trim her cast commitments.
In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, 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. Hercule Poirot – a professional
sleuth – would not be at home at all in Miss Marple's world. However, Three Act Tragedy
does feature both Hercule Poirot and the elderly bachelor Mr. Satterthwaite (confederate of
Harley Quin)
She got a favorite in Miss Marple
57. Poirot is the only fictional character to date to be 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.
Following the great success of Curtain, Christie 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 although 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.
In 2013, the Christie family gave their "full backing" to the release of a new Poirot story, The
Monogram murders, which was written by British author Sophie Hannah. Hannah later
released a second Poirot mystery, Closed Casket, in 2016 and The Mystery of the Three-
Quarters in 2018.
2013 The release of a new Poirot story
58. At the end, in a Christie hallmark, the detective usually gathers the surviving suspects into one
room, explains the course of their deductive reasoning, and reveals the guilty party, although
there are exceptions in which it is left to the guilty party to explain all (such as And Then
There Were None and Endless Night).
Christie allows some culprits to escape earthly justice for a variety of reasons, such as the
passage of time (retrospective cases), in which the most important characters have already
died, or by active prescription. Such cases include The Witness for the Prosecution, Murder
on the Orient Express, The Man in the Brown Suit, Elephants Can Remember, and The
Unexpected Guest. There are instances in which a killer is not brought to justice in the legal
sense but does die as a direct result of their plot, sometimes by their own hand at the direction
or with the collusion of the detective (usually Hercule Poirot). This occurs in The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd, Death on the Nile, Dumb Witness, Crooked House, The Hollow, The
Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, Cat Among the Pigeons, Peril at End House, Nemesis,
Appointment with Death, The Secret Adversary, and Curtain. In the last of these (Curtain),
no fewer than three culprits die during the course of the story.
Gathers the surviving suspects into one room
59. In The A.B.C. Murders, the murderer has killed four innocent people and attempted to
frame an unstable man for the crimes. Hercule Poirot, however, prevents this easy way out,
ensuring a trial and hanging. In And Then There Were None, the killer's own death is
intrinsic to the plot; the red herring is when and how the killer actually died. However, stage,
film, and television productions of some of these mysteries were traditionally sanitized with
the culprits not evading some form of justice, for a variety of reasons – e.g., censors, plot
clarity, and Christie's own changing tastes. (When Christie adapted Witness for the
Prosecution into a stage play, she lengthened the ending so that the murderer was also killed;
this format was followed in screen versions, including the Billy Wilder film from 1957.) In
Death Comes as the End, set in ancient Egypt, the culprit is killed by one of the few surviving
characters before he can claim another victim.
The A.B.C Murders
60. In some stories, the question remains unresolved of whether formal justice will ever be
delivered, such as Five Little Pigs and Endless Night. According to P. D. James, Christie
often, but not always, made the unlikeliest character the guilty party. Savvy readers could
sometimes identify the culprit by simply identifying the least likely suspect.
On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Christie had told
him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely
suspect was, after which she would go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that
person. However, John Curran describes different working methods for every book in
Christie's bibliography, contradicting the claim by Aldiss.
The most unlikely suspect, look for that person
61. Titles
Christie's mature novels, from 1940 onwards, often have titles drawn from literature.
Four are from Shakespeare:
Sad Cypress from a song in Twelfth Night: "Come away, come away, death / And in sad
cypress let me be laid".
By the Pricking of My Thumbs from Act 4, Scene 1 of Macbeth : "By the pricking of my
thumbs / Something wicked this way comes".
There is a Tide... (later Taken at the Flood) from Brutus' speech in Julius Caesar: "There is a
tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune".
Absent in the Spring from Sonnet 98: "From you have I been absent in the spring ..."
Three are from the Bible:
Evil Under the Sun from Ecclesiastes 5:13 (and restated in 6:1): "There is a sore evil which I
have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt".
The Burden from Jesus' words: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me ... For my yoke is
easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew: 11: 29–30).
The Pale Horse from the Revelation of St John (6:8): "I looked, and there before me was a
pale horse! Its rider was named Death ...".
62. Another six are from other works of literature:
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side from Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott": "Out flew the
web, and floated wide/The mirror cracked from side to side/'The curse is come upon me,"
cried/The Lady of Shalott“ The Moving Finger from verse 51 of Edward FitzGerald's
translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: "The Moving Finger writes; and, having
writ/Moves on ..." This, in turn, refers to the Biblical account of Belshazzar's feast (Daniel,
chapter 5), which is the origin of the expression "the writing on the wall".
The Rose and the Yew Tree from Section V of "Little Gidding" from T. S. Eliot's Four
Quartets: "The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree/Are of equal duration".
Postern of Fate from the poem "Gates of Damascus" by James Elroy Flecker: "Postern of
Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear/The Portal of Bagdad am I ..."
Endless Night from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence: "Some are born to sweet delight
/ Some are born to endless night". N or M? from the Catechism in the Book of Common
Prayer which asks, "What is your Christian name? Answer N. or M. The "N. or M." stands for
the Latin, "nomen vel nomina", meaning "name or names". It is an accident of typography that
"nomina" came to be represented by "m".
63. In such cases, the original context of the title is usually printed as an epigraph. Similarly, the
title of Christie's autobiographical travel book Come, Tell Me How You Live is a quote from
verse three of the White Knight's poem, "Haddocks' Eyes" from chapter eight of Through the
Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, and is a play on the word "tell", an archaeological mound.
The title of The Mousetrap is purportedly an allusion to Shakespeare's play Hamlet, in which
"The Mousetrap" is Hamlet's answer to Claudius's inquiry about the name of the play whose
prologue and first scene he and his court have just watched.
Seven stories are built around words from well known children's nursery rhymes: And Then
There Were None (from "Ten Little Indians"), One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (from "One,
Two, Buckle My Shoe"), Five Little Pigs (from "This Little Piggy"), Crooked House (from
"There Was a Crooked Man"), A Pocket Full of Rye (from "Sing a Song of Sixpence"),
Hickory Dickory Dock (from "Hickory Dickory Dock"), and Three Blind Mice (from "Three
Blind Mice"). Similarly, the novel Mrs McGinty's Dead is named after a children's game that is
explained in the course of the novel.
64. Character stereotypes
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, non-Europeans,
and sometimes Americans. For example, she described "Hebraic men with hook-noses
wearing rather flamboyant jewellery" in the first editions of the collection The Mysterious Mr
Quin (1930), in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier"; in later editions, the passage was
edited to describe "sallow men" wearing same.
In The Hollow, published as late as 1946, one of the more unsympathetic characters is "a
Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a corncrake ... a small woman with a
thick nose, henna red and a disagreeable voice". To contrast with the more stereotyped
descriptions, Christie sometimes showed "foreigners" as victims or potential victims at the
hands of English malefactors, such as, respectively, Olga Seminoff (Hallowe'en Party) and
Katrina Reiger (in the short story "How Does Your Garden Grow?"). Jewish characters are
often seen as un-English (such as Oliver Manders in Three Act Tragedy), but they are rarely
the culprits.
65. However, many American characters are positive characters living in the UK, and are
frequently misunderstood by their British associates. The Fulbright scholar Sally Finch
(Hickory Dickory Death, also published as Hickory Dickory Dock) is intelligent, attractive
and innocent, even though Mrs. Nicoletis automatically assumes she will object to sharing
house with students of other races. Another (foreign) student falsely labels Sally as being a
fanatical anti-Communist simply because she is American (the book was written just after
the McCarthy period, in 1955). Anthony Browne (in Sparkling Cyanide, also titled
Remembered Death), whom the book depicts as probably American, is suspected of being
a spy. However, he is actually in counter-intelligence, and deduces correctly who the
murderer is.
American characters
66. In They Do it With Mirrors, Walter Hudd, though outwardly negative, appears so because he
is unhappy with life on his in-laws’ estate and his wife's flirtations with other men. His wife's
aunt, Mildred, assumes he committed the murder, with the phrase "He's probably one of
those dreadful American gangsters. She is probably judging him by what a British character
would have read in newspapers about American crime. Christie's father was American
Often, she is 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.
She had trouble with an incompetent Swiss French nursery helper (Marcelle) for toddler
Rosalind, and as a result she decided, "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.
67. Non-fiction writings
Christie published relatively few non-fiction works:
Come, Tell Me How You Live, about working on an archaeological dig,
drawn from her life with second husband Max Mallowan
The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery, a collection
of correspondence from her 1922 Grand Tour of the British empire,
including South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada
Agatha Christie: An Autobiography, published posthumously in 1977
Non – fiction writing
68. Critical reception and legacy
Often referred to as the "Queen of Crime" or "Queen of Mystery", Christie is the world's best-
selling mystery writer and is considered a master of suspense, plotting, and characterization.
Some critics, however, have regarded Christie's plotting as superior to her skill with other
literary elements. Novelist Raymond Chandler criticised her in his essay "The Simple Art of
Murder", and 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.
In honour of the 125th anniversary of her birth, 25 contemporary mystery writers and one publisher revealed
their views on Christie's works. Many of the authors read Christie's novels first, before other mystery writers, in
English or in their native language, influencing their own writing, and nearly all still view her as the "Queen of
Crime", and creator of the plot twists used by mystery authors. Nearly all had one or more favourites among
Christie's mysteries, and find her books good to read now, nearly 100 years after her first novel was published.
Several of the authors would be very pleased to have their own novels in print in 100 years. Just one of the 25
authors held with Edmund Wilson's views. Harper Collins also published a souvenir magazine Shocking Real
Murders: Behind Her Classic Mysterie
Critical reception and laegacy
69. Actress Olivia Williams at the TCA/CTAM press tour event and the
special panel event at the Paley Center on July 9, 2014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Williams#/media/File:Olivia_Williams_July_9,_2014_(cropped).jpg
Bonnie Wright speaking at the 2017 Phoenix Comicon in Phoenix,
Arizona.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Wright#/media/File:Bonnie_Wright_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg
Connected to Agatha Christis books
Actress
