The document provides an overview of Agatha Christie, a famous English author known for her crime novels and short stories. It discusses that she wrote mystery stories focusing on the characters of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, a private detective, who used logic and evidence to solve murders. Christie was born in 1890, married twice, and had one daughter. She worked as a nurse during WWI and also wrote romance novels and plays. She received an honor from the Queen in 1971. Christie died in 1976 at age 85 and is considered the best-selling novelist of all time, with her works translated into over 100 languages and selling billions of copies worldwide.

1. Modern Literature
Tokpaeva Danna Serikovna
04/03/2023

2. Introduction to Modern Period
Modern period in the English literature begins with the 20th century and
remain till 1965. The period saw an abrupt break away from the old ways of
interacting with the world. In all the previous periods experimentation and
individualism were highly discouraged but With the onset of the modern period
both these things became virtues. There were many cultural shocks with the
beginning of modernism. The blow of the modern age were the World War 1
and 2. These wars began in the year 1914 and last till 1919 and 1939 to 1945
respectively. Aftermath of the world wars was traumatic for everyone. The
horror of the world war 1 was evident on the face of every citizen. Feeling of
uncertainty was spread and no one knew where the world was heading into.

3. Key points to remember
Advancement of the social science and natural science in the later half of the
19th century and early decades of the 20th century. Gains in material wealth
with the rapid development and industrialization. The difference between
aristocrats and clergy increased more.
English literature of the modern age started with the initiation of the 20th
century. The prominent feature of the literature during the modern age was
that it opposed the general attitude towards life as shown in Victorian
literature.
People started to regard victorian age as a hypocritical age, having superficial
and mean ideals. Hypocrisy of victorian period generated a rebellious attitude
in the writers of modern literature. Things that were considered as beautiful
and honourable during victorian age was considered as ugly by the writers of
modern period. Sense of questioning was absent in the mind of the people
from the victorian age.

4. During Victorian times, people adhere to the voice of the people who were in
power, they accepted the rules made the church. People started to accept the
law without questioning them. But the generation came after were having
critical thinking, they raise questions against the decisions produced by
supreme authorities. Writers of modern age refuted the ideas and beliefs of
previous era.
Modern age helped in replacing the simple belief of the victorians into modern
man’s desire to probe. George Bernard Shaw attacked the old superstitious
religious beliefs as well as the superstitions of science. He was the one who
pioneered the interrogative habits in the mid of modern people. Shaw openly
challenged the voice of those who were ruling the country, and religion
authority. He provoked the people to come up with questions over the morality
and religion.

5. Transition from the Victorian Period
to the Modern Period
Changes in the literature
There were various changes took place in the field of literature also during the
modern period. The imaginative writing, verses, structure of the verses of
Victorian period became obsolete. Writers work started losing the magic they
used to have in previous age. Victorian writers were becoming rancid and their
works were failing to evoke the spirit of the readers. Art has to be renewed in
order to revitalize the readers. But victorian art works were lacking the
surprising elements and freshness in the content.

6. Declination of sentiments and values
Modern world people were more into independence, they don’t want to bind
by the parental authority,whereas Victorians believed in maintaining the home
life, they consider themselves a family person more. Moreover, the feeling of
love was getting limited to sex in modern times, love had become less of a
romance and more like a greed. Such things portray the decline in the values,
emotions and feelings in the people of modern period. Literary work also
portray the similar life style. If writers try to write on the themes of victorian
age then it would be no longer a striking piece of literature. Therefore, you
will find the literature of modern period having less zeal for love, natural
beauty and the sentiments. Modern writers come up with fresh point of view
suiting the conventional audience.

7. Age of machinery
There is no doubt that machinery has dominated the modern people’s
life. Modern period is also known as the age of machinery. People had become
too materialistic brought by the machinery. There is no doubt that the advent
of machinery made life comfortable for modern man. Living become quite
easy and production of goods were also accelerated. But they downward side
of mechanical life was that man has mechanical like a clock, using all his
energy not according to his/her own will rather according to the time
scheme. Such atmosphere of modern life brought great distress among the
people.

8. Literature of the Modern Period
Literary trends
The trend of modernism emerged after the end of the First World War. They
includes:
-Stream of consciousness
-Surrealism
-Cubism
-Dadaism
-Futurism
-Expressionism
-Imagism
-Symbolism

9. His earlier writing in the 1880s contains different forms. In the early 1890s, he became
one of the most prevalent playwrights in London. Oscar Wilde is best known for his
plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, imprisonment, his criminal opinions for
uncivilized offensiveness, and his death at the age of 46.
Wilde was a spokesman for aestheticism. He worked at various literary activities. He
turned out to be one of the best-known personalities of his time because of his biting
wit, impressive conversational skills, and showy dressing. In the late 1890s, he
advanced his ideas about the authority of art in essays and dialogues. He also employed
the themes of depravity, beauty, and duplicity. These themes are found in his only
novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray".
Wilde started writing drama with an opportunity to construct artistic specifics precisely.
He combines these artistic specifics with the larger social themes. In 1891, he wrote
Salome in French. The play was not published in England because the English stage
prohibited portraying Biblical subjects. In the early 1890s, Wilde also published four
comedies of society. These comedies made him one of the effective playwrights of late-
Victorian England.

10. In 1895, Oscar Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest. This play attained the
height of fame and success and was widely performed on stage for a long period of time.
During that time, Oscar Wilde charged the lover of his father, Marquess of Queensberry,
for criminal defamation. The defamation trial made Oscar Wilde drop his charges
against Marquess and caused his own arrest for indecency with men. The charge against
Wilde was proved, and he was put into hard labor for two years (1895-1897).
In the last year in his prison, Wilde wrote De Profundis. It is a long letter that discusses
his spiritual journey. To his early philosophy, he formed a dark counterpart to his early
philosophy. After release, he went to France. In 1898, he wrote his last work, The Ballad
of Reading Gaol.
Oscar Wilde (Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde) was an Irish playwright and poet.
The Wilde family home Merrion Square
Photograph by Napoleon Sarony, 1882 Oscar Wilde at Oxford

11. In 1887, he published A Study in Scarlet and created a character of Sherlock Holmes.
A Study of Scarlet is his first novel of four novels and many short stories that he wrote
about Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. In the genre of crime fiction, the stories of
Sherlock Holmes are regarded as the milestone.
Arthur Canon Doyle was a creative writer. Apart from Holmes series, he also wrote
about science fiction and fantasy about Prof. Challenger and comical stories about
Brigadier Gerard, the Napoleonic soldier. He also wrote romances, plays, poetry, and
historical and non-fictional novels. The early short story of “J, Habakuk Jephson’s
Statement,” published in 1884 assisted in propagating the mystery of the Mary Celeste.
Doyle`s house in South Norwood
Portrait by Herbert Rose Barraud, 1893 Arthur C.D in June 1914

12. Author of famous science fiction novels “Time Machine”, “Invisible Man”, “War of
the Worlds”, etc. Representative of critical realism. Supporter of Fabian socialism.
Born September 21, 1866 in Bromley, a suburb of London. His father was a
shopkeeper and professional cricketer, his mother a housekeeper. At first he studied at
the Midhurst classical school.
Educated at Kings College, University of London, which he graduated in 1888. By
1891, he received two academic degrees in biology, since 1942 a doctor of biology.
After apprenticeship with a manufactory merchant and working in a pharmacy, he was
a teacher at the school, a teacher of exact sciences and an assistant with Thomas
Huxley. In 1893, he was professionally engaged in journalism.
Wells became famous for his first work, The Time Machine, in 1895. Shortly after the
publication of this book, Wells wrote the following: “The Island of Dr. Moreau”
(1895); The Invisible Man (1897), and his most famous work: War of the Worlds
(1898).
From 1903 to 1909, Wells was a member of the Fabian Society, which advocated
caution and gradualism in politics, science, and public life.

13. 141 Maybury Rd, Woking, where Wells lived from May 1895 until late 1896
Young Wells, «Bertie» as
he was known, c.1870s
Portrait by George
Charles Beresford,
1920

14. William was one of the most reputed and well-known writers of his era, and one of the
highest-paid authors of his time. His work was popular for his simple style of writing,
as well as his sharp and accurate understanding and judgment of human nature. His
uniqueness inspired several other writers like Ian Fleming and George Orwell. Orwell
stated that he not only immensely admired Maugham's straightforward storytelling
skills, but it was Maugham who had inspired him the most, out of all writers. English
writer Anthony Burgess also praised Maugham's influence by including a fictional
portrait in one of his novels 'Earthly Powers.' He is also remembered for his short
stories, most of them dealing with the lives of the Western colonists, mostly British, in
the Far East. The emotional toll which the colonists had to bear by their isolation was
expressed in the stories. Maugham can also be regarded as one of the important travel
writers of the inter-war years. His work 'The Gentleman in the Parlour' deals with a
journey through places like Burma, Siam, Cambodia and Vietnam. This work is
regarded as Maugham's best work in this genre. Many of his works have also been
adapted for both television and radio.

15. Cap Ferrat, Maugham`s home from 1927
Maugham in the
early 20th century
Maugham by Carl Van
Vechten, 1934

16. George Bernard Shaw, known as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish critic, playwright, political
activist, and polemicist. He started influencing the theater, politics, and culture of the
West from the 1880s till his death, and even after his death. Bernard Shaw contributed
more than sixty plays to English literature. His major works include Man and Superman,
Saint Joan, and Pygmalion. Bernard Shaw was the leading dramatist of his time. He
incorporates historical allegory and satire in his plays. He received the Nobel Prize in
Literature for his dramas in 19925.
The views that Bernard Shaw expressed in his works were, most of the time,
argumentative. Shaw supported the alphabet and eugenics reforms. He was strongly
against organized religion and vaccination. He became ill-known for his denouncement
of both sides of the First World War. He asserts that both sides of the World War are
equally guilty. Even though Bernard Shaw was not a republican, he criticized the
policies of the British in Ireland in the post-war period. These views and stances, though,
had affected his popularity and productivity as a dramatist, it was not long-lasting.
In the inter-war period, Shaw published numerous ambitious plays. These plays achieved
the success of various degrees. Shaw also wrote a film version of his
screenplay Pygmalion in 1938.

17. He received an Academy Award for his film. He was continuously in politics. He was
highly interested in building controversies around him. For instance, in the 1920s, he
renounced the gradualism of the Fabian Society. He also wrote and spoke in favor of
the right and left dictatorship. He expressed approval for both Stalin and Mussolini.
Though in the final years of his life, he did not make many statements, he continued to
write regularly. He does not accept any state honors; even in 1946, he refused to take
Order of Merit.
Bernard Shaw is rated second to Shakespeare among British Dramatists and
playwrights. The critical and scholarly opinions about his works varied greatly. He has
greatly influenced the playwrights of his coming generations. In order to encapsulate
the ideas of Bernard Shaw, the term “Shavian” has entered the English language.
Shaw`s birthplace, 2012
Shaw in 1911 Shaw in 1936, aged 80

18. Agatha Miller
Agatha Christie, in full Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (15 September 1890 – 12
January 1976) was an English writet crime stories. Her books are very famous all over
the world, and she sold a lot of books. Her stories are about murders and finding out
who did them. The most well-known characters in her books are Miss
Marple and Hercule Poirot. Miss Marple is an old lady, and she talks to everyone. She
uses logic to find out who is guilty of the murder. Hercule Poirot is a private detective
from Belgium who lives in London. He likes to find out who did the murder by
thinking about all the evidence.
Christie was born in Torquay. She was married twice; she had a daughter called
Rosalind Hicks. She worked in a hospital and in a pharmacy during World War I. She
also wrote romance novels and plays. They were very successful too. In 1971, she was
honoured by the Queen with the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British
Empire.
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.

19. The Guinness Book of World Records ranks Christie as the best-selling novelist ever. Her
novels have sold about 4 billion copies. Her works are the world's most-widely published
books after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible. Her books have been translated
into at least 103 languages. Christie's best-selling novel is And Then There Were None. It
has sold 100 million copies. It is the world's best-selling mystery novel.
Winterbrook House. Her final home, Christie lived here with her husband from1934 until her death in 1976
Christie as a girl, early 1900s Christie in 1958