Agatha Christie, the Writer
Agatha Christie is the world’s best-known mystery writer. Its no wonder that her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language. It seems that her books stand number three, only after Bible and Shakespeare. Her ingenuity lies in her ability to surprise you each time with the real criminal.
In all, she wrote over 66 detective novels, numerous short stories and screenplays. She also wrote a series of romantic novels using the pen name Mary Westmacott. She also wrote over a dozen plays including The Mousetrap, which opened in London on November 25, 1952, and is now the longest continuously-running play in theatrical history.
She also wrote an autobiography. I avoid autobiographies and I had only read Gandhiji?s autobiography so far. Growing up on a diet of Agatha Christie?s mystery books, I was keen to read about the life of the Queen of Crimes! I do not repent it! I personally like to know about the writers and poets whose work I like---probably to know and understand what made (or makes them) write so well!
The book gives you an insight about Agatha’s life right from her childhood, her family, siblings, her fears, her likes and dislikes, her marriage, her divorce, her trips, her remarriage, her kids. I think she has written from her heart.
Agatha Christie, the Person
Childhood: Agatha Christie writes fondly about her childhood (then, Agatha Miller). She was born in England in1890 in a conservative but well-to-do family. She was the youngest of three children. As a child she was very shy child who was unable to adequately express her feelings. So music was a means of expression and books were her companions. Apart from her siblings, Agatha even writes about her childhood nannies and pets, even the cooks and parlour maids. As a young girl, she was interested in crochet, embroidery, music and tennis and did not have any dreams of becoming a writer.
Marriage and Divorce: When she was about 25, she married Archie Christie, a World War I fighter pilot. While he was off at war, she worked as a nurse. It was while working in a hospital that Christie first came up with the idea of writing a detective novel. Ten years with a daughter in hand Agatha was shattered when her husband, Archie asked for a divorce. He had fallen in love with an much younger woman.
Agatha Christie briefly describes the state of her emotional distress of loosing her mother and then her divorce from her husband. She writes that she was totally shattered and depressed that she did a disappearing act. It seems, the whole of England became wrapped up in the case of the missing writer who was a famous writer by then. She was found by the police three weeks later in a small hotel under an assumed name and she told them that she had lost her memory.
Mesopotamia and Marriage: Agatha decided to go on a trip to Baghdad all alone. Actually she was unsure about traveling alone and hence it wasn’t planned until the last moment. She traveled by train from London to Damascus and then rode by bus for 48 hours across the desert to Baghdad. The trip introduced her to the settings for several later crime stories, including Murder on the Orient Express and The Gate of Baghdad a short story in which a man is killed in on a bus bound for Damascus.
During her trip to Mesopotamia she met Max Mallowan, a young archaeologist about 15 years younger than she was. Soon they got married and Agatha writes how she found happiness with her marriage. Agatha put together most of her most popular books while assisting her husband at digs in Iraq and Syria. She also widely traveled and lived in places like Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iran, and most of these countries provided venues for her crime stories. That is probably the reason why she could give accurate descriptions of the places and the people in her books.
In Murder in Mesopotamia, Hercule Poirot solves homicides at a dig in Iraq. In Death on the Nile, he catches a killer aboard a Nile cruise ship. In Appointment with Death, he uncloaks a murderer who committed the crime in Jordan.
Books
Agatha Christie’s first novel was The Mysterious Affair at Styles which was published when she was about 30 years old. This book introduced the eccentric Belgian detective Hercule Poirot who insisted on using his little gray cells. Around that time, she wrote another book Murder in the Vicarage which introduced Miss Jane Marple, the shrewdly inquisitive elderly spinster as the sleuth.
Her last published novel was Sleeping Murder was published when she was in her mid eighties. Needless to say, Christie’s most well-known and beloved characters were Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Agatha writes that the character Miss Marple was based on her grandmother. Similarly, she took references from real life and used it wonderfully in her books.
Some of the books I have read (as far as my memory helps me) are: The Sparkling Cyanide, Murder on the Orient Express, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Death on the Nile, Sleeping Murder, Murder in Mesopotamia, N or M?, The A.B.C. Murders, A Murder is Announced, The Murder at the Vicarage, And Then There Were None, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Partners in Crime, Cards on the Table, The Moving Finger, Murder is Easy, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Appointment with Death, At Bertram’s Hotel, The Body in the Library, A Caribbean Mystery, Cat Among the Pigeons, The Secret of Chimneys, The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, 4:50 from Paddington, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Hickory Dickory Dock, The Man in the Brown Suit, A Pocket Full of Rye, The Seven Dials Mystery, Three Blind Mice.
To know Agatha Christie, read this book!