Background

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on September 15, 1890, into a wealthy upper middle-class family in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon. She was a daughter of Frederick Alvah and Clarissa Margaret Miller née Boehmer. She also had a brother and a sister.

Education

Christie's 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 music, and she learned to play both the piano and the mandolin. According to biographer Laura Thomson, Clara believed that Agatha should not learn to read till she was eight. However, due to her curiosity, Agatha taught herself to read much earlier.

In 1902, Agatha was 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 sent to Paris where she was educated in three pensions – Mademoiselle Cabernet's, Les Marroniers, and then Miss Dryden's – the last of which served primarily as a finishing school.

Career

In 1920 Christie launched a career which made her the most popular mystery writer of all time. Her total output reached 93 books and 17 plays; she was translated into 103 languages (even more than Shakespeare); and her sales have passed the 400 million mark and are still going strong.

It was in her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), that Christie introduced one of her two best-known detectives, Hercule Poirot, and his amanuensis, Captain Hastings. Her debt to the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is manifest in the books in which this pair appears. Like Holmes, Poirot is a convinced and convincing spokesman for the human rational faculty (he places his faith in "the little grey cells"), uses his long-suffering companion as a sort of echo-chamber, and even has a mysterious and exotically-named brother who works for the government. Captain Hastings, like Dr. John Watson a retired military man, has much in common with his prototype: he is trusting, bumbling, and superingenuous, and by no means an intellectual. Yet occasionally he wins applause from the master by making an observation which by its egregious stupidity illuminates some corner previously dark in the inner recesses of the great mind. There is even a copy of Conan Doyle's ineffectual Inspector Lestrade in the person of Inspector Japp.

While writing in imitation of Conan Doyle, Christie experimented with a whole gallery of other sleuths. Tuppence and Tommy Beresford, whose specialty was ferreting out espionage, made their debut in The Secret Adversary (1922); their insouciant, almost frivolous approach to detection provided a sharp contrast to that of Poirot. The enigmatic, laconic Colonel Race appeared first in The Man in the Brown Suit (1924), but, since his principal sphere of activity was the colonies, he was used only sporadically thereafter. Superintendent Battle, stolid, dependable, and hardworking, came onto the scene in The Secret of Chimneys (1925) and later solved The Seven Dials Mystery (1929), but probably because of a lack of charisma was relegated to a subordinate role after that.

Others who debuted during this experimental period were the weird pair of the other-worldly Harley Quin and his fussbudgety, oldmaidish "contact," Mr. Satterthwaite, and the ingenious Parker Pyne, who specialized not in solving murders, but in manipulating the lives of others so as to bring them happiness and/or adventure. Pyne was often fortunate enough to have the assistance of Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the mystery novelist who bore an uncanny resemblance to her creator.

The year 1926 was a watershed year for Christie. It saw the publication of her first hugely successful novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, in which the narrator is the murderer, a plot twist that provoked great controversy about the ethics of the mystery writer. It was also a year of personal tragedy: her mother died, and then she discovered that her husband was in love with another woman. She suffered a nervous breakdown and on December 6 disappeared from her home; subsequently her car was found abandoned in a chalk-pit. Ten days later, acting on a tip, police found her in a Harrogate hotel, where she had been staying the entire time, although registered under the name of the woman with whom her husband was having his affair. She claimed to have had amnesia, and the case was not pursued further.

In 1930, writing under the penname of Mary Westmacott, she published Giant's Bread, the first of six romances, none of which showed distinction. In that same year in Murder at the Vicarage, undoubtedly the best-written Christie novel, she first presented Jane Marple, who became one of her favorite sleuths and showed up frequently thereafter. Miss Marple was one of those paradoxes in whom readers delight: behind the Victorian, tea-and-crumpets, crocheted-antimacassar facade was a mind coldly aware of the frailty of all human beings and the depravity of some.

In the mid-1930s Christie began to produce novels that bore her unique stamp. In them she arranged a situation which was implausible, if not actually impossible, and into this unrealistic framework placed characters who acted realistically for the most realistic of motives. In Murder in the Calais Coach (1934) the murder is done with the connivance of a dozen people; in And Then There Were None (1939) nine murderers are invited to an island to be dispatched by an ex-judge with an implacable sense of justice; in Easy to Kill (1939) four murders are committed in a miniscule town without any suspicions being aroused; in A Murder Is Announced (1950) the killer advertises in advance. Also interesting in these books is Christie's philosophy that it is quite acceptable to kill a killer, particularly one whose crime is a heinous one.

In addition to her fiction, her archaeological reminiscences, the children's book Star over Bethlehem (1965), a collection of her poetry (1973), and her autobiography (1977), Christie authored 17 plays. Her own favorite was Witness for the Prosecution (1953), based on one of her novellas, but the public disagreed. The Mousetrap opened in London in 1952 and played there for over three decades, a run unparalleled in theater history.

Achievements

• Agatha Christie is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and six romances under the name Mary Westmacott. Christie was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956. In 1971 she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.
  
  Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author – having 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.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Body in the Library

    (Colonel Bantry has found the strangled body of an exotic ...)

    1942
  • Autobiography

    (From early childhood at the end of the 19th century, thro...)

    1977
  • Evil Under the Sun

    (The classic Evil Under the Sun, one of the most famous of...)

    1941
  • Curtain

    (The legendary detective saves his best for last as he rac...)

    1975
  • Hercule Poirot's Christmas

    (In Hercule Poirot's Christmas, the holidays are anything ...)

    1938
  • Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly

    (Never before published – the lost classic, unseen for six...)

    2013
  • A Murder Is Announced

    (A murder is announced in a small-town newspaper advertise...)

    1950
  • And Then There Were None

    (First, there were ten – a curious assortment of strangers...)

    1939
  • The Pale Horse

    (When an elderly priest is murdered, the killer searches t...)

    1961
  • The Hollow

    (Hercule Poirot becomes entangled in a nasty web of family...)

    1946
  • Death on the Nile

    (The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered ...)

    1937
  • The Murder at the Vicarage

    (Murder at the Vicarage marks the debut of Agatha Christie...)

    1930
  • The Murder on the Links

    (Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is summoned to France af...)

    1923
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

    (Belgian Inspector Hercule Poirot has retired to the count...)

    1926
  • The Secret Adversary

    (Where is the real Jane Finn? The mere mention of her name...)

    1922
  • The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

    (One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on at...)

    1962
  • The A. B. C. Murders

    (When Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot i...)

    1936
  • Murder on the Orient Express

    (Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express...)

    1934
  • Hallowe'en Party

    (A teenage murder witness is drowned in a tub of apples. A...)

    1969
  • Five Little Pigs

    (It was an open and shut case. All the evidence said Carol...)

    1942

Religion

Christie was a member of the Church of England. She was baptized as an infant, but stopped taking communion in the church after her divorce with her first husband.

The mystery writer’s books don’t discuss religion very frequently or deeply, but some choose to interpret her crime novels as metaphors for original sin (everyone’s guilty of something), the triumph of Good over Evil, and the Biblical concept of morality. Her stories also dabble in the occult, with her use of psychics as characters for instance, but many essayists dismiss her interest in that form of spirituality as an intellectual curiosity and not to be taken seriously.

Christie did not talk much about her faith in public, but from the few quotes, it seems she found comfort in religion. In her autobiography she recounts something told to her by a teacher: To love, as Jesus loved, is to be Christian. Likewise, to despair, as Jesus did, is to be Christian. If you do neither, then you do not know what it means to live the Christian life.

Politics

Depending on point of view, Christie either had no "coherent political position," was "actually fairly liberal," or her novels are thinly veiled propaganda for Burkean conservatism.

Christie believed morality should be enforced on an individual level, not mandated by the state. She preferred the old order and was suspicious of change on a grand level as that related to a Nazi takeover of Europe or feminism. In the 1960s, when asked her views on women in the workplace, she said, "It is the foolishness of women in relinquishing their position of privilege obtained after many centuries of civilization. Primitive women toil incessantly. We seem determined to return to that state voluntarily." As that quote betrays, her old order was based on class divisions of which she was the benefactor. It also informed the racism and antisemitism that make some of her passages unpalatable today.

Views

Quotations: "One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood."

"I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."

"It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them."

"Very few of us are what we seem."

"The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances."

"A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path."

"An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her."

Membership

Agatha Christie was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Personality

Christie was 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 Lear and Lewis Carroll.

Christie had a lifelong interest in archaeology. She wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed work to the archaeological sites, more specifically to the archaeological restoration and labelling of ancient exhibits, including tasks such as cleaning and conserving delicate ivory pieces, reconstructing pottery, developing photos from early excavations which later led to taking photographs of the site and its findings, and taking field notes.

Christie would always pay for her own board and lodging and her travel expenses so as to not influence the funding of the archaeological excavations, and she also supported excavations as an anonymous sponsor. When she travelled to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii in 1922, Christie tried out a new sport which was quickly gaining in popularity at the time: surfing. She took great joy writing about her success at keeping her balance on the board as she rode back to shore.

While a murder is typically needed to set a murder mystery in motion, Christie’s preferred methodology for slaying her characters was poison. She had worked in a dispensary during war time and had an intimate knowledge of pharmaceuticals. Rarely did her protagonists carry a gun. Besides, Christie was staunchly opposed to having her photograph appear on any part of her books.

Quotes from others about the person

• Connie Willis: "I learned everything I know about plot from Dame Agatha (Christie)."
  
  Amor Towles: "I read a lot of Agatha Christie's that fall of 1938 – maybe all of them. The Hercule Poirots, the Miss Marples. Death on the Nile, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Murders on the links, at the vicarage, and on the Orient Express. I real them on the subway, at the deli, and in my bed alone. You can make what claims you will about the psychological nuance of Proust or the narrative scope of Tolstoy, but you can't argue that Mrs Christie fails to please. Her books are tremendously satisfying."
  
  Linwood Barclay: "Does Christie still hold up today? Does it matter? All of us who write crime fiction owe her as great a debt as we do the inventor of the printing press."
  
  Barbara Nadel: "What I think marks Christie’s books out is the fact that she created a whole other world that, in many ways, is a lot safer and more appealing than our own."

Interests

• Surfing

• Writers

  Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Anthony Hope, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas

Connections

Agatha married Archie Christie on the afternoon of Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel Church, Clifton, Bristol, which was close to the home of his parents. In late 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He was in love with Nancy Neele, who had been a friend of Major Belcher, director of the British Empire Mission, on the promotional tour a few years earlier. The Christies divorced in 1928, and Archie married Nancy Neele. Agatha retained custody of daughter Rosalind and the Christie name for her writing. During their marriage, she published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.

Christie met her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan, a distinguished archaeologist, on a trip to the excavation site at Ur in 1930. But her fame as an author far surpassed his fame in archaeology. Prior to meeting Mallowan, Christie had not had any extensive brushes with archaeology, but once the two married, they made sure to only go to sites where they could work together. Christie accompanied Mallowan on countless archaeological trips, spending 3–4 months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Nineveh, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud.

Father:

Frederick Miller

Frederick Miller was a member of the American upper class, and had been sent to Switzerland for his education. He was considered personable and friendly by those who knew him. He soon developed a romantic relationship with Clara, and they were married in April 1878. He was often ill, suffering from a series of heart attacks, and he died in November 1901.

Mother:

Clara (Boehmer) Miller

Clarissa Miller (1854 – 1926) was an Englishwoman who was born in Belfast in 1854 to Captain Frederick Boehmer and Mary Ann West, the couple's only daughter. Clara Boehmer had four brothers, one of whom died young. Captain Boehmer was killed in a riding accident while stationed on Jersey in April 1863.

Son:

Louis Montant Miller

(1880 – 1929)

Sister:

Margaret Frary Miller

Margaret Frary Miller (1879 – 1950) was the sister of Agatha Christie. She was married to James Watts and gave birth to Jack Watts.

Ex-husband:

Archibald Christie

Archibald Christie (1889-1962) was an officer in the Royal Flying Corps.

Daughter:

Rosalind Hicks

Rosalind Hicks (1919 – 2004) was the only child of Agatha Christie. She was first married to Hubert Prichard, and after his death she married Anthony Hicks. After Christie's death in 1976, she worked to maintain an strengthen the reputation of her mother as a literary figure, and to protect the integrity of her works.

Grandson:

Mathew Prichard

Mathew Prichard (born 1943) is the son of Hubert Prichard and Rosalind Hicks, and the only grandchild of Agatha Christie.

husband:

Max Mallowan

Max Mallowan (6 May 1904 – 19 August 1978) was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history.

References

• A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie Studies the thrillers and crime novels of Agatha Christie, analyzing her masterful solutions, strategems of deception, and ability to divert the reader's attention from the matter of real importance and revealing her racial and class prejudices.
  1980
• Agatha Christie A to Z Agatha Christie A to Z contains over 2,500 entries that cover all aspects of the Christie phenomenon, including relationships with friends, relatives, and associates, and chapter-by-chapter plot synposes to all her mystery stories.
  1996
• The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie: A Biographical Companion to the Works of Agatha Christie This professional life of Agatha Christie provides authoritative information on each book's provenance, on the work itself and on its contemporary critical reception set against the background of the major events in the author's life.
  1979
• Ladies of the Field The first women archaeologists were Victorian era adventurers who felt most at home when farthest from it. Canvas tents were their domains, hot Middle Eastern deserts their gardens of inquiry and labor.
  2010
• Agatha Christie Companion A reference guide to the writings of Agatha Christie, providing plot summaries of each of her mystery novels, short stories, and plays, as well as profiles of her non-mystery works, with information on characters, reviews, film and television adaptations, and biographical data and trivia about the author.
  1984
• Agatha Christie Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie's letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law, and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction but the truth behind her private life as well.
  2007