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Information about Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Born:15 September 1890(1890--)
Torquay, Devon, England
Died:12 January 1976 (aged 87)
Cholsey, Oxfordshire, England
Occupation:Novelist
Genres:Murder mystery, Crime fiction
Literary movement:Golden Age of Detective Fiction
Influences:Edgar Allan Poe
Anna Katherine Green
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
GK Chesterton
Website:agathachristie.com


Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), mainly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. 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 or Miss Jane Marple, 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 second only to William Shakespeare. An estimated one billion copies of her novels have been sold in English, and another billion in 103 other languages.[1] 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 run ever in London, opening at the Ambassadors Theatre on 25 November 1952, and as of 2007 is still running after more than 20,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year, Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA, for Best Play. Most of her books and short stories have been filmed, some many times over (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, 4.50 From Paddington), and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.

In 1998, the control of the rights to most of the literary works of Agatha Christie passed to the company Chorion, when it purchased a majority 64% share in Agatha Christie Limited.[2]

Biography

Enlarge picture
A plaque from the Agatha Christie Mile at Torre Abbey in Torquay.
Agatha Christie was born as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torquay, Devon, to an American father and an English mother. She never held or claimed United States citizenship. Her father was Frederick Miller, a rich American stockbroker, and her mother was Clara Boehmer, a British aristocrat. Christie had a sister, Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, eleven years her senior, and a brother, Louis Montant Miller (1880–1929), called Monty, ten years older than Christie. Her father died when she was very young. Her mother resorted to teaching her at home, encouraging her to write at a very young age. At the age of 16 she went to a school in Paris to study singing and piano.

Her first marriage, an unhappy one, was in 1914 to Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks, and divorced in 1928.

During World War I she worked at a hospital and then a pharmacy, a job that influenced her work; many of the murders in her books are carried out with poison. (See also cyanide, ricin, and thallium.)

On 8 December 1926, while living in Sunningdale in Berkshire, she disappeared 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. Public sentiment at the time was negative, with many feeling that an alleged publicity stunt had cost the taxpayers a substantial amount of money. A 1979 film, Agatha, starring Vanessa Redgrave as Christie, recounted a fictionalised version of the disappearance. Other media accounts of this event exist; it was featured on a segment of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story, for example.

In 1930, Christie married a Roman Catholic (despite her divorce and her Anglican faith), the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. Mallowan was 14 years younger than Christie, and his travels with her contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. 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. 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 Pera Palas hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railroad. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author. 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, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: The short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding which is 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 Styles, Chimneys, Stoneygates and the other houses in her stories are mostly Abney in various forms."[3]

Enlarge picture
Agatha Christie's room at the Pera Palas hotel where she wrote Murder on the Orient Express.


In 1971 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976, at age 85, from natural causes, at Winterbrook House in the north of Cholsey parish, adjoining Wallingford in Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire). She is buried in the nearby St Mary's Churchyard in Cholsey.

Christie's only child, Rosalind Hicks, died on 28 October 2004, also aged 85, from natural causes. Christie's grandson, Mathew Pritchard, was heir to the copyright to some of his grandmother's literary work (including The Mousetrap) and is still associated with Agatha Christie Limited.

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 30 of Christie's novels and 50 short stories.

Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and was based on Christie's grandmother.

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 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. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.

Like Arthur Conan Doyle, 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 "an ego-centric creep". 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 what the public liked was Poirot.

In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However it is interesting to note that the Belgian detective’s titles outnumber the Marple titles by more than two to one.

Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain in 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 in the book with 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 (which, like Curtain, was written in the 1940s) despite the fact he is noted as having died in books that were written after but published before the posthumous release of Sleeping Murder in 1976—such as, The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. 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 Saint Mary Mead.

On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss recounted how Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter, and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. [1]

In popular culture

Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and television:
  • The first occasion was the 1979 Agatha, when Vanessa Redgrave portrayed her.
  • Hilda Gobbi in a 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak Budapesten
  • Peggy Ashcroft in a 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book in which Ian Holm appeared as Poirot
  • Esme Lambert played the part in The Dead Zone episode "Unreasonable Doubt", transmitted on July 14, 2002.
  • Olivia Williams played the part in a BBC television programme entitled which, like Agatha, revolved around the 1926 disappearance. It was transmitted on September 22, 2004.
  • Aya Sugimoto in an episode of a Japanese television series called Hyakunin no Ijin in 2006
  • On August 10, 2007, it was announced that actress Fenella Woolgar (who had appeared as Ellis in Lord Edgware Dies) would appear as Christie in the 2008 season of the science fiction TV series Doctor Who.
  • Michelle Trout will play the part in a US film, Lives and Deaths of the Poets, which is due for release in 2009.
  • A precog in the movie Minority Report (film) is named after her.
  • The play Murder By Indecision parodies Christie with the character Agatha Crispy and her theme of writing.

List of works

Novels

Year
published		 Title Detectives
1920The Mysterious Affair at StylesHercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1922The Secret AdversaryTommy and Tuppence
1923The Murder on the LinksHercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
1924The Man in the Brown SuitAnne Beddingfeld
Colonel Race
1925The Secret of ChimneysSuperintendent Battle
1926The Murder of Roger AckroydHercule Poirot
1927The Big FourHercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1928The Mystery of the Blue TrainHercule Poirot
1929The Seven Dials MysteryBill Eversleigh
Superintendent Battle
1930The Murder at the VicarageMiss Marple
1931The Sittaford Mystery
also Murder at Hazelmoor		Emily Trefusis
1932Peril at End HouseHercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1933Lord Edgware Dies
also Thirteen at Dinner		Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1934Murder on the Orient Express
also Murder on the Calais Coach		Hercule Poirot
1934Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
also The Boomerang Clue
1935Three Act Tragedy
also Murder in Three Acts		Hercule Poirot
1935Death in the Clouds
also Death in the Air		Hercule Poirot
Chief Inspector Japp
1936The A.B.C. Murders
also The Alphabet Murders		Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1936Murder in MesopotamiaHercule Poirot
1936Cards on the TableHercule Poirot
Colonel Race
Superintendent Battle
Ariadne Oliver
1937Dumb Witness
also Poirot Loses a Client
also Mystery at Littlegreen House
also Murder at Littlegreen House		Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
1937Death on the NileHercule Poirot
Colonel Race
1938Appointment with DeathHercule Poirot
1938Hercule Poirot's Christmas
also Murder for Christmas
also A Holiday for Murder		Hercule Poirot
1939Murder is Easy
also Easy to Kill		Superintendent Battle
1939And Then There Were None
also Ten Little Indians
also Ten Little Niggers
1940Sad CypressHercule Poirot
1940One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
also An Overdose of Death
also The Patriotic Murders		Hercule Poirot
Chief Inspector Japp
1941Evil Under the SunHercule Poirot
1941N or M?Tommy and Tuppence
1942The Body in the LibraryMiss Marple
1942Five Little Pigs
also Murder in Retrospect		Hercule Poirot
1942The Moving Finger
also The Case of the Moving Finger		Miss Marple
1944Towards Zero
also Come and Be Hanged		Superintendent Battle
Inspector James Leach
1944Death Comes as the End
1945Sparkling Cyanide
also Remembered Death		Colonel Race
1946The Hollow
also Murder After Hours		Hercule Poirot
1948Taken at the Flood
also There is a Tide		Hercule Poirot
1949Crooked HouseCharles Hayward
1950A Murder is AnnouncedMiss Marple
1951They Came to Baghdad
1952Mrs McGinty's Dead
also Blood Will Tell		Hercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1952They Do It with Mirrors
also Murder with Mirrors		Miss Marple
1953After the Funeral
also Funerals are Fatal
also Murder at the Gallop		Hercule Poirot
1953A Pocket Full of RyeMiss Marple
1954Destination Unknown
also So Many Steps to Death
1955Hickory Dickory Dock
also Hickory Dickory Death		Hercule Poirot
1956Dead Man's FollyHercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
19574.50 from Paddington
also What Mrs. McGillycuddy Saw
also Murder She Said		Miss Marple
1958Ordeal by Innocence
1959Cat Among the PigeonsHercule Poirot
1961The Pale HorseInspector Lejeune
Ariadne Oliver
1962The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
also The Mirror Crack'd		Miss Marple
1963The ClocksHercule Poirot
1964A Caribbean MysteryMiss Marple
1965At Bertram's HotelMiss Marple
1966Third GirlHercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1967Endless Night
1968By the Pricking of My ThumbsTommy and Tuppence
1969Hallowe'en PartyHercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1970Passenger to Frankfurt
1971NemesisMiss Marple
1972Elephants Can RememberHercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1973Postern of Fate
final Tommy and Tuppence
last novel Christie wrote		Tommy and Tuppence
1975Curtain
Poirot's last case, written four decades earlier		Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
1976Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple's last case, written four decades earlier		Miss Marple

Collections of Short Stories

Novels written as Mary Westmacott

Plays

Radio Plays

  • 1937 Yellow Iris (Based on the short story of the same name)
  • 1947 Three Blind Mice (Christie's celebrated stage play The Mousetrap was based on this radio play)
  • 1948 Butter In a Lordly Dish
  • 1960 Personal Call (A BBC Radio recording of this play is known to exist)

Television Plays

  • 1937 Wasp's Nest (Based on the short story of the same name)

Nonfiction

  • 1946 Come Tell Me How You Live
  • 1977

Other published works

Co-authored works

Other works based on Christie's books and plays

Plays adapted into novels by Charles Osborne

  • 1998 Black Coffee
  • 1999 The Unexpected Guest
  • 2000 Spider's Web

Plays adapted by other authors

Movie Adaptations

Miss Marple Murder films with Margaret Rutherford
 •  • [ e]
Films Murder, She Said | Murder at the Gallop | Murder Most Foul | Murder Ahoy!
Cameo: The Alphabet Murders Based on the Agatha Christie novels 4.50 from Paddington | After the Funeral | Mrs. McGinty's Dead		 Cast Margaret Rutherford | Stringer Davis | Bud Tingwell Crew George Pollock | Ron Goodwin

Television Adaptations

Agatha Christie's Poirot television series

Episodes include:

Comics

HarperCollins began issuing a series of comic strip adaptations of Christie's work on July 16 2007.

Video games

Unpublished material

  • Eugenia and Eugenics (stage play)
  • The Case of the Caretaker's Wife (Miss Marple short story, published - without Miss Marple - as The Case of the Caretaker)
  • The Capture of Cerberus (Poirot short story, completely rewritten and published as The Capture of Cerberus)
  • Witchhazel (supernatural short story)
  • Snow Upon the Desert (romantic novel)
  • The Greenshore Folly (detective novella, featuring Hercule Poirot, expanded into the novel Dead Man's Folly)
  • Personal Call (supernatural radio play, featuring Inspector Narracott - a recording is in the British National Sound Archive)
  • The Woman and the Kenite (horror: an Italian translation, allegedly transcribed from an Italian magazine of the 1920s, is available on the internet La moglie del Kenita
  • Butter in a Lordly Dish (horror/detective radio play, adapted from The Woman and the Kenite)
  • The Green Gate (supernatural)
  • The War Bride (romantic/supernatural)
  • The Case of the Dog's Ball (short story, featuring Poirot, expanded to the novel Dumb Witness and related to the short story How Does your Garden Grow?)
  • Stronger than Death (supernatural)
  • Being So Very Wilful (romantic)
  • The Last Seance (stage play)
  • Someone at the Window (detective stage play, adapted from the short story The Dead Harlequin)

Animation

In 2004, the Japanese broadcasting company Nippon Housou Kyoukai 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.

See also

References

1. ^ [2]
2. ^ [3]
3. ^ Agatha Christie: A Readers Companion - Vanessa Wagstaff and Stephen Poole, Aurum Press Ltd. 2004. Page 14. ISBN 1 84513 015 4.

Further reading

Articles



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