1890-1976
Who Was Agatha Christie?
Dubbed the “Queen of Mystery,” Agatha Christie was an author and playwright known for books such as Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, as well as characters like Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. Christie published her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1920 and went on to become one of the most famous writers in history with 83 books to her name (and her pseudonym, Mary Westmacott). She also became a noted playwright with The Mousetrap, which is still running today on London’s West End. Christie died in January 1976 at age 85 and remains one of the top-selling authors ever, with her combined works selling more than 2 billion copies worldwide.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
BORN: September 15, 1890
DIED: January 12, 1976
BIRTHPLACE: Torquay, England
SPOUSES: Archie Christie (1914-1928) and Max Mallowan (1930-1976)
CHILDREN: Rosalind
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Virgo
Early Life
Agatha Christie was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller on September 15, 1890, in Torquay, Devon, in the southwest part of England. The youngest of three siblings, she was educated at home by her mother, who encouraged her daughter to write. As a child, Agatha enjoyed fantasy play and creating characters, and, when she was 16, she moved to Paris for a time to study vocals and piano.
Husbands, Daughter, and Disappearance
In October 1912, Agatha met Archibald “Archie” Christie at a dance. The pair became engaged in 1913, just before Archie entered military training. At the outset of World War I, he was stationed in France and became a pilot. The couple married during his first period of leave, on Christmas Eve in 1914, and they relocated to London at the conclusion of the war.
Agatha and Archie had one child, Rosalind Hicks, born in August 1919. Their marriage began crumbling in 1926, when Archie revealed in August that he had begun a relationship with a woman named Nancy Neele and asked for a divorce. Agatha, who was also grieving the death of her mother, had an alarming response to the revelation.
On December 3 after an argument, the author, who had published the popular book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that year, left her home in Sunningdale and disappeared. Christie’s disappearance set off a manhunt involving both police and civilians. According to the U.K. National Archives, her flight became a media sensation and writer Arthur Conan Doyle even consulted a medium in an attempt to find her whereabouts.
On December 14, a stranger recognized Christie at the Swan Hydro hotel in Harrogate, where she had checked in using Neele’s name. She had no recollection of the prior 11 days, and her biographer later wrote she was in a “fugue” state caused by trauma or depression. However, some believed she had left on purpose to embarrass her husband. Christie ultimately recovered, with she and Archie finally divorcing in 1928.
In 1930, Agatha remarried with archaeology professor Max Mallowan, with whom she traveled on several expeditions, later recounting her trips in the 1946 memoir Come, Tell Me How You Live.
Books
As she was growing her family, Christie’s writing career ascended. She published her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1920. The story focused on the murder of a rich heiress and introduced readers to one of Christie’s most famous characters: Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
Poirot returned in The Murder on the Links (1923) and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), a hit that was later marked as a genre classic and one of the author’s all-time favorites. The year of Christie’s second nuptials saw the release of Murder at the Vicarage (1930), which became another classic and introduced readers to Miss Jane Marple, an enquiring village lady.
Poirot and Marple are Christie’s most well-known detectives, with the two featured in dozens of novels and short stories. Poirot made the most appearances in Christie’s work in titles that include Ackroyd, The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928), and Death in the Clouds (1935). Miss Marple was featured in books like The Moving Finger (1942) and A Pocket Full of Rye (1953) and been played onscreen by actors like Angela Lansbury, Helen Hayes, and Geraldine McEwan. Other notable Christie characters include Tuppence and Tommy Beresford, Colonel Race, Parker Pyne, and Ariadne Oliver.
Writing well into her later years, Christie wrote more than 70 detective novels as well as short fiction. Christie’s success as an author of sleuth stories has earned her titles like the “Queen of Crime” and the “Queen of Mystery.” She also wrote romance novels like Unfinished Portrait (1934) and A Daughter’s a Daughter (1952) under the name Mary Westmacott. In total, Christie published 83 books, including works using her pseudonym.
Christie was a renowned playwright as well, with works like The Hollow (1951) and Verdict (1958). Her play The Mousetrap opened in 1952 at the Ambassador Theatre and—at more than 8,800 showings during 21 years—set the record for the longest unbroken run in a London theater. After a brief hiatus amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the show is still going strong today with more than 27,500 performances as of February 2022.
Queen Elizabeth II bestowed Christie with damehood in 1971 for her contributions to literature. Three years later, Christie made her last public appearance for the opening night of the play version of her 1934 book Murder on the Orient Express.
Death
Christie died at her home, Winterbrook House, at age 85 on January 12, 1976. That night, the lead actor of The Mousetrap, Brian McDermot, led a theater audience in a silent tribute to the author. At her death, it was estimated that Christie’s thrillers had sold around 300 million copies. She is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary’s Church in Cholsey, where she attended worship services.
It was reported Christie was in poor health in her later years, and she complained of an inability to concentrate. Friends also said she had fits of anger and began to speak nonsensically in conversation. This has led to speculation that she might have suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, though Christie was never officially diagnosed. A study by Ian Lancashire, an English professor at the University of Toronto, showed that Christie’s vocabulary had declined by about 20 percent based on words used in 16 of her novels over a 50-year-period—giving credence to this theory.
Movie and TV Adaptations
Several of Christie’s works have been adapted into popular movies and television shows, including as recently as 2023.
Murder on the Orient Express
In 1974, Albert Finney starred as detective Poirot in a film version of Murder on the Orient Express, featuring an ensemble cast that included Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, and Vanessa Redgrave. Bergman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, with Finney receiving a Best Actor nomination and the movie earning a nod for adapted screenplay. Murder on the Orient Express also inspired a 2001 made-for-TV movie.
In 2017, Kenneth Branagh directed and portrayed Poirot alongside Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, and Michelle Pfeiffer in a reimagined movie version.
Death on the Nile
In 1978, Death on the Nile premiered and starred Peter Ustinov as Poirot, along with Mia Farrow, Bette Davis, and Angela Lansbury in supporting roles. Meanwhile, for a 2022 remake, Branagh again played Poirot alongside Annette Bening, Gal Gadot, and Armie Hammer.
See How They Run and A Haunting in Venice
Also in 2022, the mystery spoof See How They Run, starring Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan, took inspiration from Christie’s play The Mousetrap and featured Shirley Henderson as a fictional version of the author. A year later, Christie’s 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party served as the basis for another Poirot movie mystery, A Haunting in Venice.
TV Miniseries: Ordeal By Innocence and The Pale Horse
Several of Christie’s works have been adapted for the small screen in the form of TV miniseries, including And Then There Were None (2015); The Witness for the Prosecution (2016); The ABC Murders (2018), starring John Malkovich as Poirot; Ordeal By Innocence (2018); The Pale Horse (2020); and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2022).
Quotes
- People often ask me what made me take up writing... I found myself making up stories and acting the different parts. There’s nothing like boredom to make you write. So by the time I was 16 or 17, I’d written quite a number of short stories and one long, dreary novel. By the time I was 21, I finished the first book of mine ever to be published.
- I think the real work is done in thinking out the development of your story and worrying about it until it comes right. That may take quite a while. Then when you’ve got all your materials together, as it were, all that remains is to try and find time to write the thing.
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