Agatha Christie

Biography

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 claimed United States citizenship. Her father was Frederick Alvah Miller, a rich American stockbroker, and her mother was Clarissa Margaret Boehmer, the daughter of a British army captain[3]. 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 eleven years old. Her mother taught her at home, encouraging her to write at a very young age. At the age of 16 she went to Mrs Dryden's finishing school in Paris to study singing and piano.[4]

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. It was during this marriage that she published her first novel in 1920, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

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.

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.

In 1930, Christie married the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. Mallowan was 14 years younger than Christie, and a Roman Catholic, while she was of the Anglican faith. 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.

Christie's travels with Mallowan 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, 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."[5]


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.


[edit] 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. [2]


[edit] 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 Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures 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.

[edit] List of works

[edit] Novels
Year
published Title Detectives
1920 The Mysterious Affair at Styles Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1922 The Secret Adversary Tommy and Tuppence
1923 The Murder on the Links Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
1924 The Man in the Brown Suit Anne Beddingfeld
Colonel Race
1925 The Secret of Chimneys Superintendent Battle
1926 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Hercule Poirot
1927 The Big Four Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1928 The Mystery of the Blue Train Hercule Poirot
1929 The Seven Dials Mystery Bill Eversleigh
Superintendent Battle
1930 The Murder at the Vicarage Miss Marple
1931 The Sittaford Mystery
also Murder at Hazelmoor Emily Trefusis
1932 Peril at End House Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1933 Lord Edgware Dies
also Thirteen at Dinner Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1934 Murder on the Orient Express
also Murder on the Calais Coach Hercule Poirot
1934 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
also The Boomerang Clue
1935 Three Act Tragedy
also Murder in Three Acts Hercule Poirot
1935 Death in the Clouds
also Death in the Air Hercule Poirot
Chief Inspector Japp
1936 The A.B.C. Murders
also The Alphabet Murders Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
Chief Inspector Japp
1936 Murder in Mesopotamia Hercule Poirot
1936 Cards on the Table Hercule Poirot
Colonel Race
Superintendent Battle
Ariadne Oliver
1937 Dumb Witness
also Poirot Loses a Client
also Mystery at Littlegreen House
also Murder at Littlegreen House Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
1937 Death on the Nile Hercule Poirot
Colonel Race
1938 Appointment with Death Hercule Poirot
1938 Hercule Poirot's Christmas
also Murder for Christmas
also A Holiday for Murder Hercule Poirot
1939 Murder is Easy
also Easy to Kill Superintendent Battle
1939 And Then There Were None
also Ten Little Indians
also Ten Little Niggers
1940 Sad Cypress Hercule Poirot
1940 One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
also An Overdose of Death
also The Patriotic Murders Hercule Poirot
Chief Inspector Japp
1941 Evil Under the Sun Hercule Poirot
1941 N or M? Tommy and Tuppence
1942 The Body in the Library Miss Marple
1942 Five Little Pigs
also Murder in Retrospect Hercule Poirot
1942 The Moving Finger
also The Case of the Moving Finger Miss Marple
1944 Towards Zero
also Come and Be Hanged Superintendent Battle
Inspector James Leach
1944 Death Comes as the End
1945 Sparkling Cyanide
also Remembered Death Colonel Race
1946 The Hollow
also Murder After Hours Hercule Poirot
1948 Taken at the Flood
also There is a Tide Hercule Poirot
1949 Crooked House Charles Hayward
1950 A Murder is Announced Miss Marple
1951 They Came to Baghdad Victoria Jones
1952 Mrs McGinty's Dead
also Blood Will Tell Hercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1952 They Do It with Mirrors
also Murder with Mirrors Miss Marple
1953 After the Funeral
also Funerals are Fatal
also Murder at the Gallop Hercule Poirot
1953 A Pocket Full of Rye Miss Marple
1954 Destination Unknown
also So Many Steps to Death
1955 Hickory Dickory Dock
also Hickory Dickory Death Hercule Poirot
1956 Dead Man's Folly Hercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1957 4.50 from Paddington
also What Mrs. McGillycuddy Saw
also Murder She Said Miss Marple
1958 Ordeal by Innocence
1959 Cat Among the Pigeons Hercule Poirot
1961 The Pale Horse Inspector Lejeune
Ariadne Oliver
1962 The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
also The Mirror Crack'd Miss Marple
1963 The Clocks Hercule Poirot
1964 A Caribbean Mystery Miss Marple
1965 At Bertram's Hotel Miss Marple
1966 Third Girl Hercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1967 Endless Night
1968 By the Pricking of My Thumbs Tommy and Tuppence
1969 Hallowe'en Party Hercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1970 Passenger to Frankfurt
1971 Nemesis Miss Marple
1972 Elephants Can Remember Hercule Poirot
Ariadne Oliver
1973 Postern of Fate
final Tommy and Tuppence
last novel Christie wrote Tommy and Tuppence
1975 Curtain
Poirot's last case, written four decades earlier Hercule Poirot
Arthur Hastings
1976 Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple's last case, written four decades earlier Miss Marple


[edit] Collections of Short Stories
1924 Poirot Investigates (short stories: eleven in the UK, fourteen in the US)
1929 Partners in Crime (fifteen short stories; featuring Tommy and Tuppence)
1930 The Mysterious Mr. Quin (twelve short stories; introducing Mr. Harley Quin)
1932 The Thirteen Problems (thirteen short stories; featuring Miss Marple, also known as The Tuesday Club Murders)
1933 The Hound of Death (twelve short stories - UK only)
1934 The Listerdale mystery (twelve short stories - UK only)
1934 Parker Pyne Investigates (twelve short stories; introducing Parker Pyne and Ariadne Oliver, also known as Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective)
1937 Murder in the Mews (four novella-length stories; featuring Hercule Poirot, also known as Dead Man's Mirror)
1939 Regatta Mystery and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
1947 The Labours of Hercules (twelve short stories; featuring Hercule Poirot)
1948 The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories (eleven short stories - US only)
1950 Three Blind Mice and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
1951 The Under Dog and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
1960 The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (six short stories - UK only)
1961 Double Sin and Other Stories (eight short stories - US only)
1966 Surprise! Surprise! (twelve short stories)
1971 The Golden Ball and Other Stories (fifteen short stories - US only)
1974 Poirot's Early Cases (eighteen short stories, also known as Hercule Poirot's Early Cases)
1979 Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories (eight short stories - UK only)
1991 Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories (eight short stories - UK only)
1997 The Harlequin Tea Set (nine short stories - US only)
1997 While the Light Lasts and Other Stories (nine short stories - UK only)

[edit] Novels written as Mary Westmacott
1930 Giant's Bread
1934 Unfinished Portrait
1944 Absent in the Spring
1948 The Rose and the Yew Tree
1952 A Daughter's a Daughter
1956 The Burden

[edit] Plays
1930 Black Coffee
1943 And Then There Were None
1945 Appointment with Death
1946 Murder on the Nile/Hidden Horizon
1951 The Hollow
1951 A Daughter's a Daughter (Written in the late 1930's. Performed once. Unpublished and later turned into the 1952 Mary Westmacott novel)
1952 The Mousetrap
1953 Witness for the Prosecution
1954 Spider's Web
1958 Verdict
1958 The Unexpected Guest
1960 Go Back for Murder
1962 Rule of Three (Comprised of Afternoon at the Seaside, The Rats and The Patient)
1972 Fiddler's Three (Originally written as Fiddler's Five. Unpublished.)
1973 Akhnaton (Written in 1937)
2003 Chimneys (Written in 1931, but unperformed for 72 years. Unpublished.)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Television Plays
1937 Wasp's Nest (Based on the short story of the same name)

[edit] Nonfiction
1946 Come Tell Me How You Live
1977 Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

[edit] Other published works
1925 The Road of Dreams (Poetry)
1965 Star Over Bethlehem and other stories (Christian stories and poems)
1973 Poems

[edit] Co-authored works
1930 Behind The Screen. A radio serial written together with Hugh Walpole, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, E. C. Bentley and Ronald Knox of the Detection Club. Published in book form in 1983 in The Scoop and Behind The Screen.
1931 The Scoop. A radio serial written together with Dorothy L. Sayers, E. C. Bentley, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts and Clemence Dane of the Detection Club. Published in book form in 1983 in The Scoop and Behind The Screen.
1931 The Floating Admiral. A book written together with G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers and certain other members of the Detection Club.
1956 Towards Zero (A West End theatre dramatization of her 1944 novel co-written with Gerard Verner)

[edit] Other works based on Christie's books and plays

[edit] Plays adapted into novels by Charles Osborne
1998 Black Coffee
1999 The Unexpected Guest
2000 Spider's Web

[edit] Plays adapted by other authors
1928 Alibi (dramatized from her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Michael Morton)
1936 Love from a Stranger (play) (dramatized by Frank Vosper from her adaptation of her short story Philomel Cottage)
1939 Tea for Three (dramatized by Margery Vosper from the short stort Accident)
1940 Peril at End House (dramatized from her novel by Arnold Ridley)
1949 Murder at the Vicarage (dramatized from her novel by Moie Charles and Barbara Toy)
1977 Murder at the Vicarage (dramatized from her novel by Leslie Darbon)
1981 Cards on the Table (dramatized from her novel by Leslie Darbon)
1992 Problem at Pollensa Bay
1993 Murder is Easy
2005 And Then There Were None

[edit] Movie Adaptations
1928 The Passing of Mr. Quinn (Based on the short story The Coming of Mr. Quin)
1929 Die Abenteurer GmbH (Based on The Secret Adversary)
1931 Alibi (Based on the stage play of the same name from the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
1931 Black Coffee
1934 Lord Edgware Dies
1937 Love from a Stranger (Film) (Based on the stage play of the same name from the short story Philomel Cottage)
1945 And Then There Were None
1947 Love from a Stranger (Film)
1957 Witness for the Prosecution
1960 Spider's Web (film)
1962 Murder, She Said (Based on the novel 4.50 From Paddington)
1963 Murder at the Gallop (Based on the novel After the Funeral)
1964 Murder Most Foul (Based on the novel Mrs. McGinty's Dead)
1964 Murder Ahoy! (An original movie not based on any of the books, though it borrows some of the elements of They Do It with Mirrors)
1966 Ten Little Indians
1966 The Alphabet Murders (Based on The A.B.C. Murders)
1972 Endless Night
1974 Murder on the Orient Express
1975 Ten Little Indians
1978 Death on the Nile
1980 The Mirror Crack'd
1982 Evil Under the Sun
1984 Ordeal by Innocence
1988 Appointment with Death
1987 Desyat Negrityat (Ten Little Niggers)
1989 Ten Little Indians