Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (born Miller; 15 September

1890 12 January 1976) was an English crime writer of novels, short
stories, and plays. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary
Westmacott, but she is best remembered for the 66 detective novels
and 14 short story collections she wrote under her own name, most of
which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule
Poirot, Miss Jane Marple and Tommy and Tuppence. She also wrote the
world's longest-running play,The Mousetrap.
Born to a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, Christie
served in a hospital during the First World War, before marrying and
starting a family in London. Although initially unsuccessful at getting
her work published, in 1920, The Bodley Headpress published her
novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Poirot.
This launched her literary career.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly
4 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after
those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the world's most-widely
published books. According to Index Translationum, Christie is the
most-translated individual author, and her books have 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 1971, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham
Palace.
Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest
initial run: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on
25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is still running after more than
25,000 performances.] In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of
the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master
Award, and in the same year Witness for the Prosecution was given
an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. Many of her books and short
stories have been filmed, and many have been adapted for television,
radio, video games and comics.

Life and career

Childhood: 18901910
Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie was born on 15 September 1890 into a
wealthy upper middle-class family in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon inSouth West
England. Christie's mother, Clara Boehmer was an Englishwoman who had
been born in Belfast, modern-day Northern Ireland, in 1854 to Captain
Frederick Boehmer and Mary Ann West; the couple's only daughter, she had
four brothers, one of whom died young. Captain Boehmer was killed in a
riding accident while stationed on Jersey in April 1863, leaving Mary Ann to
raise her children alone on a meagre income. Under financial strain, she sent
Clara to live with her aunt Margaret Miller ne West, who had married a
wealthy American Nathaniel Frary Miller in 1863 and lived in Prinsted, West
Sussex. Clara stayed with Margaret, and there she would meet her future
husband, an American stockbroker named Frederick Alvah Miller, who was
the son of Nathaniel Frederick was a member of the small and wealthy
American upper class, and had been sent to Europe to gain an education in
Switzerland. Considered personable and friendly by those who knew him, he
soon developed a romantic relationship with Clara, and they were married in
April 1878. Their first child, Margaret "Madge" Frary Miller (18791950) was
born in Torquay, where the couple were renting lodgings, while their second,
Louis "Monty" Montant (18801929) was born in the U.S. state of New York,
where Frederick was on a business trip. Clara soon purchased a villa in
Torquay, named "Ashfield", in which to raise her family, and it was here that
her third and final child, Agatha, was born.

Agatha Christie as a girl

Christie would describe her childhood as "very happy", and was surrounded
by a series of strong and independent women from an early age. Her time
was spent alternating between her Devonshire home, her step
grandmother/aunt's house in Ealing, West London and parts of Southern
Europe, where her family would holiday during the winter.[ Nominally
Christian, she was also raised in a household with various esoteric beliefs,
and like her siblings believed that their mother Clara was a psychic with the
ability of second sight. Her mother insisted that she receive a home
education, and so her parents were responsible for teaching her to read and
write, and to be able to perform basic arithmetic, a subject that she
particularly enjoyed. They also taught her about music, and she learned to
play both the pianoand the mandolin. 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 Learand Lewis Carroll. Much of her childhood was spent
largely alone and separate from other children, although she spent much
time with her pets, whom she adored. Eventually making friends with a
group of other girls in Torquay, she noted 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 to be her last operatic role, for as she later wrote,
"an experience that you really enjoyed should never be repeated."
Her father was often ill, suffering from a series of heart attacks, and in
November 1901 he died, aged 55. His death left the family devastated, and

in an uncertain economic situation. Clara and Agatha continued to live

together in their Torquay home; Madge had moved to the nearby Cheadle
Hall with her new husband and Monty had joined the army and been sent to
South Africa to fight in theBoer War. Agatha would later claim that her
father's death, occurring when she was 11 years old, marked the end of her
childhood for her. In 1902, Agatha would be sent to receive a formal
education at Miss Guyer's Girls School in Torquay, but found it difficult to
adjust to the disciplined atmosphere. In 1905 she was then sent to the city of
Paris, France, where she was educated in threepensions Mademoiselle
Cabernet's, Les Marroniers and then Miss Dryden's the latter of which
served primarily as a finishing school.

Early literary attempts and the First

World War: 19101919
Returning to England in 1910, Agatha found her mother Clara ill. They
holidayed in the warmer climate of Cairo in Egypt, then a popular tourist
destination for wealthy Britons. Staying for three months at the Gezirah
Palace Hotel, Agatha always chaperoned by her mother attended many
social functions in search of a husband. Although visiting such ancient
Egyptian monuments as the Great Pyramid of Giza, she did not exhibit the
great interest in archaeology and Egyptology prominent in her later years.
Returning to Britain, she continued her social activities in search of a
husband. Writing and performing in amateur theatrics, she 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 either of these as future professions.
While recovering in bed from illness, she penned her first short story "The
House of Beauty", about 6000 words on the world of "madness and dreams",
a subject of fascination. Later biographer Janet Morgan commented that
despite "infelicities of style", the story was nevertheless "compelling".Other
shorts followed, most illustrated her interest in spiritualism and the
paranormal, including "The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely God". Under
pseudonyms, various magazines rejected all her early submissions, although
revised and published later, some under new titles.
Christie then set her first novel, Snow Upon the Desert, in Cairo, and drew
from her recent experiences in the city. Under the pseudonym Monosyllaba,
she was perturbed when various publishers all declined. Clara suggested that
her daughter ask for advice from a family friend and neighbor, the successful
writer Eden Philpotts. Philpotts obliged her enquiry, encouraged her writing,

and sent her an introduction to his literary agent, Hughes Massie. However,
he too rejected Snow Upon the Desert, and suggested a second novel.
Meanwhile, Christie continued searching for a husband, and had entered into
short-lived relationships with four separate men, one engagement, before
meeting Archibald "Archie" Christie (1889-1962) at a dance given by Lord
and Lady Clifford of Chudleigh, about 12 miles (19 kilometres) from Torquay.
Archie had been born in India, the son of a judge in the Indian Civil Service.
In England he joined the air service, stationed at Devon in 1912. The couple
quickly fell in love. Upon learning he would be stationed in Farnborough,
Archie proposed marriage, and she accepted.
1914 saw the outbreak of World War I, and Archie was sent to France to
battle the German forces. Agatha also involved herself in the war effort,
joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and attending to wounded
soldiers at the hospital in Torquay. In this position, she was responsible for
aiding the doctors and maintaining morale, performing 3,400 hours of unpaid
work between October 1914 and December 1916. As a dispenser, she finally
earned 16 yearly until the end of her service in September 1918.
She met her fianc Archie, in London during his leave at the end of 1914,
and they married on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. They met throughout
the war every time that he was posted home. Rising through the ranks, he
was eventually stationed back to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in
the Air Ministry. They settled into a flat at 5 Northwick Terrace in St. John's
Wood, Northwest London.

First novels: 19191923

Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie
Collins' 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, featuringHercule Poirot. A former
Belgian police officer noted for his twirly large "magnificent moustaches" and
egg-shaped head, he was a refugee to Britain after Germany invaded
Belgium, inspired by real Belgian refugees in Torquay.
The Styles manuscript was not accepted by such publishing companies
as Hodder and Stoughton and Methuen. John Lane at The Bodley Head kept
the entry for several months, then accepted if she would change the ending.
She duly did so, and signed a contract she later felt was exploitative. Christie
meanwhile settled into married life, giving birth to daughter Rosalind at
Ashfield in August 1919, where the couple having few friends in London
spent much of their time. Having left the Air Force at the end of the war,

Archie started in the City financial sector at a relatively low salary, though
they still employed a maid.
Christie's second novel, The Secret Adversary (1922), featured 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 Sketch magazine. In order to tour the world promoting the British Empire
Exhibition, the couple left their daughter Rosalind with Agatha's mother and
sister. The pair traveled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and
Hawaii. They learned to surf prone in South Africa, then in Waikiki were
among the first Britons to surf standing up.

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 detectiveHercule Poirot, who
appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories.
Well-known Miss Marple was introduced in The Thirteen Problems in 1927
(short stories) and was based on Christie's grandmother and her "Ealing
cronies".Both Jane and Gran "always expected the worst of everyone and
everything, and was, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right."
Miss Marple appeared in 12 of Christie's novels.
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 Jane 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.
Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, 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 ego-centric creep." However, unlike
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. Feeling tied down, stuck
with a love interest, she did marry off 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".
Poirot is the only fictional character to have been 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 despite the fact 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. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since
after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular
life in St. Mary Mead.
Critical reception

A collection of paperback books by Christie.

The world's best-selling mystery writer, and often referred to as the "Queen
of Crime", Agatha Christie is considered a master of suspense, plotting, and
characterisation. Some critics however regarded Christie's plotting abilities

as considerably exceeding her literary ones. The novelist Raymond

Chandler criticised her in his essay, "The Simple Art of Murder", and the
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?".

Stereotyping
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, and non-Europeans. For example, in the first editions
of the collection The Mysterious Mr Quin (1930), in the short story "The Soul
of the Croupier," she described "Hebraic men with hook-noses wearing rather
flamboyant jewellery"; 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 characterised the "foreigners" in such a way
as to make the reader understand and sympathise with them; this is
particularly true of her Jewish characters, who while seen as unEnglish are
seldom actually criminals. (See, for example, the character of Oliver Manders
in Three Act Tragedy.)
Often she is lovingly 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." After trouble with an incompetent Swiss French nursery helper
Marcelle for toddler Rosalind, she decides "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"She proposes this, after the fact, knowing the chosen Charlotte lasts
decades.
Her book titles, changed by American publishers, for example Ten Little
Niggers to Ten Little Indians, were kept the same across the Atlantic, after
bushels of fan mail.