A lot of books are written about Agatha Christie’s life.
She is considered to be the queen of detective stories. She has conquered the world by her novels. She wrote 78 crime novels, six romantic novels, 150 short stories and 19 plays. Her books have been translated into 103 languages. The number of copies of her books is about 300 mln.
Why has she succeeded with her style? Why was she so popular? To find the answer to these questions became the aim of my work.
I study at humanitarian class and my interest to literature is great. Besides, English is my favourite subject. I find this theme actual, because the work on it will help me to master my English and discover a new page in world literature.
In my research work I’ll describe Agatha Christie’s biography, analyze her creation and the peculiarities of her language and find out the reasons of her great popularity. I’ll also represent the results of the questionnaire of my classmates concerning Agatha Christie’s works and express my attitude to her novels.
I have done a lot preparing this work. First of all, I studied the biography of the writer, read some of her novels in the original, analyzed her works and interwied my classmates on the reasons of Agatha Christie’s popularity. It was very interesting and useful to work on the given theme.
This written work can be used at Literature and English lessons and at extra curricular activities, devoted to great personalities. I’m sure it will help to broaden the students’ outlook.
AGATHA CHRISTIE’S BIOGRAPHY
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in 1890 in Torquay, Devon, England. Agatha was educated at home by her parents and then attended finishing school in Paris, where she showed particular talent as a singer and pianist. She considered a musical career, but eventually decided that her shyness in public would be an insurmountable barrier to a concert career.
In 1913,Agatha met Archibald Christie, a young army officer, and they were married on 24 December, 1914.They were separated for most of the war, and Agatha continued to live at Ashfield while she volunteered as a nurse and pharmaceutical dispenser at local hospitals. Her knowledge of poisons and fascination with them developed there. After the war, Archie Christie went into business in London, while Agatha remained at home with their daughter Rosalind, born in 1919.
In 1926, Christie’s work first gained major recognition with the publication of “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”. In the same year, the death of her mother coupled with sever marital problems led to a nervous breakdown, which climaxed with Agatha’s much-publicized disappearance for ten days in December 1926. It happened when her husband wanted a divorce so that he could marry another woman. Agatha told her secretary that she was going for a motor drive, that she wouldn’t return home that night, and that she wouldn’t “ring up” when she reached her destination. The next day the police found her car in a ditch with its lights on. There was no trace of Agatha. The police became suspicious. Was the husband hiding anything? Did he decide to get rid of his wife?
A nation-wide search for the missing writer was started. Newspapers published wild stories about her disappearance-that she had been murdered, that she had run away with a secret lover…
Eleven days later the mystery was solved. Agatha Christie was found alive in a health spa in Yorkshire… But to this day, nobody knows what really happened in December, 1926.Agatha Christie loved travelling. When she became rich, she could go all over the world. She used her travels in her writing. Many of her later books have exotic titles like “Death on the Nile” and “Murder on the Orient Express”
Agatha and Archibald divorced in 1928 (he died in 1962). When she was around 40 years old she went on a holiday and visited e.g. Iraq where she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, who was14 years younger than she. They married in 1930 and Agatha Christie became Agatha Christie Mallowan. The Mallowans divided their time between several homes in England and archeological expeditions in the Middle East. During World War the second, Max Mallowan served as an intelligence liaison officer in
North Africa, while Agatha remained in London and worked once again as a volunteer at a dispensary. She often assisted her husband on excavations, e.g. in Iraq and Syria.
After the war, the Mallowans resumed their trips to the Middle East, which continued for almost a decade. During the early 1950s, Christie’s second career, as a playwright, reached its peak with the production of “The Mousetrap” and “Witness for the Prosecution” in London in 1952 and 1953.
After a leg injury in 1971, Christie’s health began to deteriorate, and both the quality and frequency of her books declined. Her last formal public appearance was in 1974 at the opening of the film “Murder on the Orient Express”, which was attended by Queen Elizabeth and members of the royal family.
Agatha Christie was the president of the Detection Club. She became Dame Agatha in 1971. She died in 1976, but her stories are still immensely popular. Many have been adapted for film or television. When someone sits down to watch or read an Agatha Christie, they always have the same challenge: try to find out that the murderer is before the detective does!
DETECTIVES.
Now I’d like to tell you about Agatha Christie’s stories. Her first novel, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” was an instant success. Like many of Christie’s stories, it has one murder victim and many possible murderers. Emily Inglethorp is a rich old lady. When she is murdered, all the people with motives to kill her have alibis. So who did it? The police have no idea, but the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot finds the murderer.
Hercule Poirot became one of the most popular private detectives since Sherlock Holmes. He is the hero of 43 Christie’s crime stories. Poirot has many characteristics which have made him a legend all over the world-the odd moustache, the egg-shaped face and his high opinion of himself. He will though most likely be best remembered for his ability to solve complicated mysteries with the help of his little grey cells. In that area he was a worthy successor of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Poirot is probably Agatha Christie’s best-known character – and he has of course often appeared in films, portrayed by various actors. Albert Finney played him in “The Murder on the Orient Express” and Peter Ustinov has also played Poirot in many movies, such as “Death on the Nile” and “Evil Under the Sun”. Many fans of Poirot do though agree that David Suchet (from the Poirot TV series) is most likely the actor who has succeeded best in portraying the famous detective. Hercule Poirot has even become so famous as an independent character that Anne Hart, a librarian in Newfoundland has written his biography ”The Life and Times of Hercule Poirot”. Anne Hart has also written Jane Marple’s biography. But Poirot was not always alone- in Christie’s early Poirot stories Captain Arthur Hastings tried to help him – but always seemed to miss the clues that were of importance. Of course, Captain Hastings is not as intelligent as Poirot In Poirot’s later adventures Hastings was not such a frequent guest but Poirot also had other friends such as Ariadne Oliver (the mystery writer) and Detective Inspector (Chief Inspector) Japp. Austin Trevor played Hercule Poirot in three movies in the early thirties (“Alibi” ”Black Coffee” “Lord Egware Dies). Tony Randall played Poirot in one picture in 1965, “The Alphabet Murders”. In 1974 another unusual Poirot appeared – Albert Finney – in the Academy Award winning movie “The Murder on the Orient Express», where the some of the suspects were played by world famous actors – Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud and Lauren Bacall. So, during the Second World War, she wrote a book called “Curtain», in which Poirot dies. But she did not publish it until 1975. Charles Osborne published a new Poirot book in 1998.
Miss Jane Marple is another Agatha Christie’s creation. “Murder at the Vicarage” was published in 1930, but I cannot remember where, when or how I wrote it, why I came to write it, or even what suggested to me that I should select a new character – Miss Marple – to act as the sleuth in the story. Certainly at the time I had no intention of continuing her for the rest of my life. I did not know that she was to become a rival of Hercule Poirot. “- Wrote Agatha in her biography.
Miss Marple was the star of twelve Christie books, “ The Murder at the Vicarage” “The Body in the Library” “The Moving Finger” “A Murder is Announced” “They Do It with Mirrors” “A Pocketful of Rye” “4.50 from Paddington” “The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side” “A Caribbean Mystery” “ At Bertram’s Hotel” “Nemesis” and “ Sleeping Murder”. She also appeared in 20 short stories. She was already an old lady in the first book, as Agatha herself describes in her Autobiography: “Miss Marple was born at the age of sixty-five to seventy- which, as with Poirot, proved most unfortunate, because she was going to have to last a long time in my life. If I had had any second sight, I would have provided myself with a precocious schoolboy as my first detective; then he could have grown old with me.”
Marple is an English spinster and lives in the English village of St. Mary Mead and is not likely detective but always succeeds where the police have failed. Instead of using a magnifying glass looking for clues she uses her instinct and knowledge of human nature. Margaret Rutherford played Miss Marple in a few movies in the sixties but Joan Hickson is the most famous Miss Marple and appeared in TV series and TV movies, but she also played other roles in other Agatha Christie movies. Helen Hayes and “Murder She Wrote’s” Angela Lansbury have also portrayed Marple.
Agatha Christie represents the “light genre” in the twentieth century of English Literature. A great master of detective story, she thrilled the world. Agatha Christie has conquered the world, and the critics are puzzled. Part of her charm for her readers is the setting of many of her mysteries in a context of English village life, but her stories appeal to people in countries remote from England who know nothing about England and have no interest in the English. It will be said, of course, that her appeal is merely that of the puzzle, but there were plenty of other ingenious puzzlers in this period, and they are forgotten. Why has she succeeded with her flat style (even her warmest admires concede this) and her cardboard characters? Perhaps the answer is that the characters (in the books, rather than the dramatization of them) are not cardboard - or not all of them. There is something deeply appealing about Christie’s stories, which has not yet been adequately analyzed. Conan Doyle created the genre with “Sherlock Holmes”, establishing it on a basis of English comedy, as unclassifiable as the “Alice” books, or the “Pooh” of A. A. Milne. But strange and terrible things in the “Holmes” stories remain strange and terrible, whereas Agatha Christie assimilates everything to what would seem on the face of it a self-stultifying literary form: the reassuring tragedy.
Agatha Christie found it hard to be specific about just how she created the plots, which consistently baffle her readers. She readily acknowledged her debt to Conan Doyle. The author’s first detective novel “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” was written in 1915 and published in 1920 – seven years before the last Sherlock Holmes short story collection appeared in book form. She produced a mystery novel or a short-story collection at the rate of at least one a year since 1920, and one might imagine that the early books would be somewhat dated by this point. Surprisingly enough, they are not. A career, which exceeds forty-five years in length, is remarkable in any field, but is especially noteworthy in the field of so-called “popular” literature, for it would seem that people’s tastes would change radically in that span of time.
Although A.Christie’s mysteries remain remarkably consistent in their appeal to readers, it is possible to notice some changes or advances in the manner and style of mystery writing from 1920 to the present day. As the mystery story as a form becomes more mature and sophisticated, so do its readers. They can keep in their heads as many details as the detective can. So, diagrams, maps and parables have been out of vogue since the 1930s. The two devices, which the author has used over and over
Again are the nursery rhyme as an organizing theme and spiritualism as a cover for a perfectly straightforward crime.
Agatha Christie has evidently found in nursery rhymes an inspiration which permits her to develop plots with built-in suspense: the reader knows that the murderer is following the rhyme, and he knows in general terms what will come next (if he can remember the rhyme), but he is kept guessing as to how the author and the murderer will make the crime fit the rhyme. The most famous example of a nursery rhyme followed to the last detail is “Ten Little Niggers.”
Dame Agatha Christie made more profit out of murder than any woman since Lucrezia Borgia. One estimate of her total earnings from more than a half-century of writing is $ 20 million.
Her characters were: doctors, lawyers, army officers, and clergymen. Her stalking grounds were usually genteel English houses, and she rarely strayed.
In a Christie murder mystery, neatness not only counts, it is everything. As the genre’s undisputed queen of the maze, she laid her tantalizing plots so precisely and dropped her false leads so cunningly that few – if any – readers could guess the identity of the villain.
Each Agatha Christie’s book had a new and ingenious plot. Readers loved the books, particularly because Christie always gave the readers all the information they needed to find the solution.
Agatha Christie’s talents seem most aptly used in the detective story – her talents are analytical, wryly humorous, and penetrating in telling a tightly knit story, and her romance always seems less convincing. Perhaps this is due to the fact that detective story and novel are essentially a cerebral form, thanks to their conventions and confines of plot and the sort of mind who likes well-made plots is not likely to go in for formless romance and affection.
Working at this report, I’ve read some of her detective stories in Russian and in the original. Her plots are very interesting and exciting. Her every story has different plots. Besides, it is very interesting to guess who the murderer is. Her stories are very intricate. Her language is concrete and laconic. There are many interesting turns of speech in her stories. Her language keeps variety and peculiarities of everyday English oral and writing speech. The writer can intrigue her readers. She doesn’t let go our attention till the story ends. The end of any story is always unexpected. Agatha Christie belongs to the writers for whom keen observation and great memory play more important role than for other writers. All victims in her novels are killed with the poison. There is no violence description of murders in her stories. That is why her novels are easy for reading. Agatha was the best writer of her period. She is truthfully called ”The Queen of Detectives”. She is really honoured this title.
Now I’d like to represent you my analysis of the questionnaire, which I’ve done among my classmates. The questions were following:
1.Do you like to read detective stories?
2.Do you like to read Agatha Christie’s detectives?
3.What Agatha Christie’s detectives have you read?
4.What characters made a great impression on you?
5.What are the reasons of Agatha Christie’s popularity?
6.Are her books or films on her novels more popular?
7.What other detective writers do you know?
60% of the students like to read detective stories. 40% of the pupils like to read Agatha Christie’s stories. 90% of my classmates have read “Murder on the Orient Express”, “Ten Little Nigers”, “Hotel Bertram», they are more popular among them. Everybody in my class considers Hercule Poirot the best Agatha Christie’s character. 80% of the students find out that her stories are popular because they are intricate and it is interesting to know the denouement of any story. 15% consider that the plot makes her stories fascinating. 10% couldn’t answer this question. Only 3% don’t consider Agatha Christie’s Stories popular. Half of the students think that the books are more popular than films. All the rest prefer the films based on her novels. And only 5% of the pupils haven’t read or seen any book or film by Agatha Christie. My classmates know such detective writers, as: A. Marinina, Y. Dashkova, S. Sheldon, A. Kivinov, E. Po, C. Doyle, J. Chase.
So you see that we really like to read Agatha Christie’s detective stories and enjoy them greatly. Her novels give us an excellent opportunity to learn more about England of the twentieth century, with national peculiarities of human prototypes and with noisy towns and calm countryside.
A lot of books are written about Agatha Christie’s life. She is considered to be the queen of detective stories. She has conquered the world by her novels. She wrote 78 crime novels, 6 romantic stories, 150 short stories and 19 plays. Her books have been translated into 103 languages. The number of copies of her books is about 300 mln.
Why has she succeeded with her style? Why was she so popular? To answer these questions became the aim of my work.
I study at humanitarian class and my interest to literature is great. Besides, English is my favourite subject. I find this theme actual, because the work on it will help me to master my English and discover a new page in world literature.
In my research work I’ll describe Agatha Christie’s biography, analyse her creation and the peculiarities of her language and find out the reasons of her great popularity. I’ll also represent the results of the questionnaire of my classmates concerning Agatha Christie’s works and express my attitude to her novels.
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in 1890 in Torquay, Devon, England. Agatha was educated at home by her parents and then attended school in Paris, where she showed particular talent as a singer and pianist. She considered a musical career, but eventually decided that her shyness in public would be an insurmountable barrier to a concert career.
In 1913, Agatha met Archibald Christie, a young army officer, and they were married on December 24, 1914. They were separated most of the war, and Agatha continued to live at Ashfield while she volunteered as a nurse and pharmaceutical dispenser at local hospitals. Her knowledge of poisons and fascination with them developed there. In 1926, Christie’s work first gained major recognition with the publication of “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”.
Agatha and Archibald divorced in 1928. When she was around 40 she went on a holiday and visited Iraq where she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, who was 14 years younger than she. They were married in 1930. During World War II Max Mallowan served as an intelligence liaison officer in North America, while Agatha remained in London and worked once again as a volunteer at a dispensary. She often assisted her husband on excavations in Iraq and Syria.
During the early 1950s Christie’s second career, as a playwright reached it’s peak with the production of “The Mousetrap” and “Witness for the Prosecution” in London in 1952 and 1953.
After a leg injury Christie’s health began to deteriorate, and both the quality and frequency of her books declined. Her last formal appearance was in 1971 at the opening of the film “Murder on the Orient Express”, which was attended by Queen Elizabeth and members of the royal family.
Agatha Christie was the president of the Detection Club. She became Dame Agatha in 1971. She died in 1976, but her stories are still immensely popular.
Now I’d like to tell you about Agatha Christie’s main characters. Hercule Poirot became one of the most popular private detectives since Sherlock Holmes. He is the hero of 43 Christie’s crime stories. Poirot has many characteristics
Which have made him a legend all over the world – the odd moustache, the egg-shaped face and his high opinion of himself. He is small and round and is always elegantly dressed. He will though most likely be best remembered for his ability to solve complicated mysteries with the help of his little grey cells. In that area he was a worthy successor of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. He amazes everybody by his powerful intellect and his brilliant solutions to the most complicated crimes. Poirot is probably Agatha Christie’s best-known character. But Poirot wasn’t always alone – in Christie’s early Poirot stories Captain Arthur Hastings tried to help him but always seemed to miss the clues that were of importance. Captain Hastings is not as intelligent as Poirot, who is always encouraging Hastings to use his “little grey cells”. Agatha soon became bored with Poirot. So, during World War II, she wrote a book called “Curtain”, in which Poirot dies. But she didn’t publish it until 1975.
Miss Jane Marple is another Agatha Christie’s creation appeared first in “Murder at the Vicarage”, published in 1930.
Miss Marple was the star of 12 Christie’s books. She also appeared in 20 short stories. She was an old lady in the first book, (as Agatha herself describes in her Autobiography.)
Miss Marple is an English spinster and lives in the English village of St. Marry Mead and isn’t likely detective but always succeeded where the police have failed. Instead of using a magnifying glass looking for clues she uses her instinct and knowledge of human nature. She is not a professional detective, but she has a wonderful power of observation. As she says, no one thinks an old woman is important, so she often hears information that no one tells the police.
Why has she become the Queen of crime? Was has she conquered the world? To answer these questions I’ve done a lot: I’ve read her stories, I’ve made a questionnaire of my classmates. The questions were following:
Summing it up and making a conclusion, I must say, that 94% of my classmates like to read Agatha Christie’s novels, especially such stories as “Murder on the Orient Express», “Hotel Bertram”, “Ten Little Niggers”, and distinguish the same reasons of her great popularity.
At first, I must say, that her plots are different, interesting and intricate. Her plots make her stories fascinating. It is interesting to know who the murderer is. The writer can intrigue her readers. She doesn’t let go our attention till the story ends. The end of any story is always unexpected.
Secondly, her language is vivid and expressive. Besides, it is laconic. There are many turns of speech in her novels. The language keeps variety and peculiarities of everyday English oral and written speech.
Thirdly, Agatha Christie describes every murder without any violence. All the victims in her stories are killed with the poison. That is why her novels are easy and pleasant for reading. So, all these peculiarities of writing helped her to become famous. That is why she has conquered the world that is why she is called “The Queen of Crime”. She is really honoured this title.
LITERATURE:
Magazine “Mozaika” N 7,9, 1976
“A Prologue to English Literature». W. W. Robson.
“Agatha Christie”, Janet Morgan, Smolensk “Rusich” 1998.
“Agatha Christie” – “Collection of stories», Moscow, 1976.
Magazine “Speak Out”, 1998 N 4
http: //www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2549/e-agatha.htm
http://www.hi.is/~ragnaj/eacac.htm
http://www.dalton.org/students/bkyaffe/wwwac/acbio.html
Source: http://school14perm.narod.ru/Ag.doc
Web site to visit: http://school14perm.narod.ru
Author of the text: indicated on the source document of the above text
What were the things in Agatha’s life that had the biggest influence on her writing career?
What impact did a solitary childhood have?
And how did she first come up with the idea of writing a detective novel with poison and its method of murder?
The youngest child of three, Agatha Christie spent much of her childhood alone as her two elder siblings were away at boarding school, and there were few neighbours with children of her age. She was also a very shy child who didn’t go to school. Her mother who had been passionately enthusiastic for education for girls and had sent her sister to boarding school, then swung characteristically to the opposite view and kept Agatha at home.
Like her mother, Christie had an extremely creative and vivid imagination. In her autobiography, Agatha admits she was always over burdened with imagination – but it served her well in her profession.
Growing up therefore she created a host of imaginary friends and creatures to keep herself amused. Her games were based on make-believe, and from as early as she can remember, she always had companions of her own choosing. Her first recollections were “The Kittens” – Clover, Blackie and three others; then there was Mrs Green who had a hundred children including Poodle, Squirrel and Tree, and they accompanied Agatha on all her exploits in the garden.
At about the age of 9, Agatha Christie invented a school and a set of friends who attended the school. There were seven girls of varying ages and characters – some she liked such as Annie Gray, a shy nervous girl easily reduced to tears, who was 9 years old with pale flaxen hair and blue eyes; others she disliked, such as Isabella Sullivan – a rich golden haired girl with brown eyes aged 11 who gave herself airs and boasted about being rich – and Agatha used to organise tournaments and hope that Isabella wouldn’t win.
“The girls” stayed with Christie for many years, changing their characters as she matured. Even at the time of writing her autobiography, Agatha still sometimes would put a dress in a cupboard saying to herself “Ella would look very nice in that”.
Agatha Christie was born in the era of Victorian England in 1890, where it was usual to have servants. Agatha grew up with servants – they were not a particular luxury at the time – it wasn’t a case of only the rich having them, the only difference was the rich had more. As a family, they were comfortably well off with 3 servants which was considered the minimum at that time.
Christie therefore wrote about the society she was born into and therefore knew well, and a large number of her books were set in country houses. Servants invariably play a part in her plots, blending into the background, but usually a vital source of information from overheard conversations (see also Plot Devices).
Agatha also reflected contemporary events that were occurring at the time of writing her books. Her decision to make her first detective, Poirot, a Belgian was a reflection of the fact that the district of Tor where she lived there was an influx of Belgian refugees, following the invasion of Belgium by the Germans. Many other contemporary events are reflected in her novels, most notably a German measles epidemic which occurred at the time of writing The Mirror Cracked, and which plays an important part in the book’s plot.
During the First World War Agatha Christie worked as a nurse in the local hospital. After about two years she went to work in the hospital dispensary where she was to spend the next two years working. Christie didn’t enjoy dispensing as much as nursing which she felt she had a real vocation for. However she studied for her Apothecaries Hall examination, and in the process learnt all about drugs and poisons and their effects.
Agatha had a nervous horror of making a mistake with the poisons, and even awoke in the middle of one night worried about what she had done with the ointment pot lid that she had put some carbolic in – had she put the lid on top of another ointment which would then have a layer of carbolic in the top? She was so worried that she got dressed and walked down to the hospital in the middle of the night to double check.
There were a total of 83 poisonings in her books.
Agatha Christie grew up reading many books, including detective stories written by Conan Doyle and Gaston Le Roux. Indeed, she believes it was The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Le Roux that first sparked the conversation between herself and her sister Madge about writing a detective novel.
The Christie sisters talked about the book a lot, discussed their views and agreed it was one of the best. Agatha describes this book as a particularly baffling mystery, well worked out and planned “of the type some call unfair and others have to admit is almost unfair, but not quite; one could just have seen a neat little clue cleverly slipped in”.
Agatha told Madge she would like to try her hand at a detective story, and her sister told her she didn’t believe she could do it because they were so very difficult to write. However the seed was planted, and somewhere in the background, Agatha knew that some day she would write a detective story.
The crime novels she grew up with were also to have an impact on her writing. In her Autobiography Agatha Christie admits to writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition, with an eccentric detective (Poirot), a stooge assistant (Hastings) and a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective (Inspector Japp). However Agatha was very keen that her detectives should be significantly different (see also Detectives).
As a relatively young child, the Christie family spent some time in the South of France whilst their house in Devon was rented out over the summer. At the age of 15, Agatha’s mother decided that they should both go to Paris where Agatha was enrolled in the school where Madge had gone. Her ability to speak fluent French no doubt helped in her choice of her Belgian, French speaking detective, Hercule Poirot; and her third book, Murder on the Links, was also set in France.
Agatha Christie’s beloved Devon also features heavily as the background setting for many of her novels, including The Sittaford Mystery and Then There Were None.
Following her divorce from Archie Christie, she went alone on a trip to Baghdad on the Orient Express, and spent several weeks touring the region. Later during her marriage to Max Mallowan, she spent long periods in the Middle East, whilst Max worked on archaeological digs.
These travels inspired not only Murder on the Orient Express, but also Murder in Mespotamia, Death on the Nile, Death Comes as the End and Appointment with Death. Indeed Agatha later wrote some travel narratives under her married name of Agatha Christie Mallowan.
Source: http://www.dpcdsb.org/NR/rdonlyres/F69C7DFC-B01E-4C56-A6E3-154164AA49E9/56897/AgathaChristieInfluences.doc
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Author of the text: indicated on the source document of the above text
1. Life and career
1.1. Childhood and later life
"One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is to have a happy childhood. I had a very happy childhood."
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie was born on September 15th 1890, in Ashfield, Torquay, Devonshire. Christie would describe her childhood as "very happy", and was surrounded by strong and independent women from an early age. Agatha was raised with various beliefs, and like her siblings believed that their mother Clara was a psychic with the ability of second sight. Agatha’s mom instisted on her home education, so her parents were responsible to teach her how to read and write in life. Agatha especially enyojed in subject named arithmetic. So they taught her to perform that. They also teached her about music, and she played piano and the mandolin. She showed her love for reading in her early age, and from her childhood 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). Because of homeschool, she was separated from the other children, and spent most of her time alone, or with 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 suffered from a series of heart attacks, and was ill very often. He died in age of 55, leaving his family devastated and in extremely bad economic situation. Agahta later said that her father’s death, when she was 11, marked the end of her childhood. Later, she was sent to Miss Guyer's Girls School in Torquay, to recive formal education and continue it like most of the kids. But she found it really hard to adjust to discipline in school. In 1905 she was then 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.
1.2. First writing attempts
When Agatha came back to England, she discovered that her mother Clara was very ill. She and her mother decided to spend quality time in popular tourist destination with beautiful weather called Cairo. Returning to Britain, she continued her social activities. Writing and performing in amateur theatrics, she also 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.
Her first short story "The House of Beauty" was made while she was recovering in bad from illnes. This story was inspired by her fascination with subject “madness and dreams” and had 6000 words. Biographer Janet Morgan later commented that despite "infelicities of style", the story was nevertheless "compelling".Other shorts followed, most of them illustrating her interest in spiritualism and the paranormal. These included "The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely God". Many of magazines rejected all her submissions, even though, many of these stories are later published, but with new tittles. Christie then set her first novel, “Snow Upon the Desert”, in Cairo, and drew from her recent experiences in that city. Under the pseudonym Monosyllaba, she was perturbed when various publishers all declined. Agatha’s mom, suggested her daughter to ask for advice family friend, successful writer Eden Philpotts. Philpotts obliged her enquiry, encouraged her writing, and sent her an introduction to his literary agent, Hughes Massie. However, he also rejected “Snow Upon the Deser”, and suggested a second novel.
Agatha,meanwhile, continued search for a husband. She met Archibald Chriestie at at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford of Chudleigh at Ugbrooke. Archie had been born in India, the son of a judge in the Indian Civil Service. He was an army officer who was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in April 1913. The couple quickly fell in love. Later ,Archie proposed to Agatha and she accepted.
In August, with outbreak of World War I, Archie was sent to fught German forces in August 1914. Agatha involved herself in the war effort, joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) in 1914, and attending to wounded soldiers at a hospital in Torquay.
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 featuring Hercule Poirot. “The second adversary”, Christie’s second novel, featured a new detective couple Tommy And Tuppence. A third novel again featured Poirot, “Murder on the Links”
1.3. Disappearance
When her husband fell in love with other women and asked Agatha for divorce she started changing. The same day Archie left the house to live with his new love, she disappeared from the house leaving only a letter saying she’s going to Yorkshire. Her car was later found by the lake with an expired driving licence and clothes. Despite over a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, newspapers and news she was not found for 10 days. Her missing was featured on the front page of The New York Times. On 14 December 1926, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel, in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Teresa Neele from Cape Town. Two doctors diagnosed her suffering from depression. Her mother's death earlier that year and her husband's infidelity were main reason for her disappearance. Public comments were mainly negative supposing a publicity stunt.
2. Interests and influences
2.1. Archaeology
Agatha was interested in Archaeology even when she was very little girl. On a trip to Ur 1930, she met her future husband Sir Max Mallowan, a distinguished archaeologist. Christie had not anything with archeology but once they got married they made sure to only go to sites where they could work together.
“The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic. The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself.”
“Many years ago, when I was once saying sadly to Max it was a pity I couldn't have taken up archaeology when I was a girl, so as to be more knowledgeable on the subject, he said, "Don't you realize that at this moment you know more about prehistoric pottery than any woman in England?"
Christie not only wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed work to the archaeological sites. From 8 November 2001 to 24 March 2002, The British Museum had an exhibit named Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia, which presented the secret life of Agatha Christie and the influences of archaeology in her life and works.
Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) – The most archaeologically influenced of all her novels.
Death on the Nile (1937) – One of the main characters, Signor Richetti, is an archaeologist.
They Came to Baghdad (1951) – Involves an archaeologist as the heroine's love interest.
2.2. Spirituality
Christie's life within the archaeological world shaped not only the settings and characters for her books but also the issues she highlights. One of the stronger influences is her love of the mystical and mysterious. Many of Christie's books and short stories set both in the Middle East and back in England have a decidedly otherworldly influence in which religious sects, sacrifices, ceremony, and seances play a part. Such stories include "The Hound of Death" and "The Idol House of Astarte". This theme was greatly strengthened by those times Christie spent in the Middle East where she was consistently surrounded by the religious temples and spiritual history of the towns and cities they were excavating during Mallowan's archaeological work.
3. Writings
3.1. And so a lifelong passion began…
She spent most of her time alone, imaging her frends, painting her own world and running trough garden. That is how she fostered an extraordinary imagination. Agatha was alntgways saying that she didn’t have any ambition to became a writer, even though her first poem was printed in a local London newspaper. And so a lifelong passion began.. By her late teens she had had several poems published in The Poetry Review and written a number of short stories. But it was her sister’s challenge to write a detective story that would later spark what would become her illustrious career. Agatha Christie is the only mystery writer to have created two world famous detectives - Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple.
3.2. Poirot is born
During First World War Agatha discovered her love for detectives and started writing detective novels. She had some trouble finishing her first story The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and even more trouble finding a publisher. 1919 was a momentous year for Agatha. With the end of the war, Archie had found a job in the City and they had just enough money to rent and furnish a flat in London. Later that year, on the 5th August, Agatha gave birth to their only daughter, Rosalind. It was also the year that a publisher, John Lane of The Bodley Head, and the fourth to have received the manuscript, accepted The Mysterious Affair at Styles for publication and contracted Agatha to produce five more books. Inspiration for Detective Poirot came during the First World War. There were Belgian refugees in most parts of the English countryside. He was not based on any particular person, Agatha thought that a Belgian refugee, a former great Belgian policeman, would make an excellent detective for The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Hercule Poirot was born.
3.3. Detectives
Miss Marple
Miss Jane Marple doesn’t look like your average detective. Quite frankly, she doesn’t look like a detective at all. But looks can be deceiving... For a woman who has spent her life in the small village of St Mary Mead, Miss Marple is surprisingly worldly. But as she often points out she has had every opportunity to observe human nature.
"There was no unkindness in Miss Marple, she just did not trust people. Though she expected the worst, she often accepted people kindly in spite of what they were." - Agatha Christie, An Autobiography
Tomy and Tuppence
The Secret Adversary was the first Christie novel to be adapted for film in 1928. It's a partnership that begins as young Tuppence Cowley bumps into her old friend Tommy Beresford at Dover Street tube station. After war Agatha experienced struggling from work finding a new sense of purpose was a common plight for the upper middle class of their generation. Tuppence’s idea, to hire themselves out as adventurers, becomes a lifelong journey for the duo and takes them through four novels and one short story collection.
4. Lists of works and adaptations
4.1. List of short stories by Agatha Christie
She wrote 153 stories in 14 collections and List of short stories contains all of them . Just some of them are:
Poirot Investigates
"The Adventure of 'The Western Star'"
"The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor"
"The Adventure of the Cheap Flat"
"The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge"
"The Million Dollar Bond Robbery"
"The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb"
"The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan"
"The Kidnapped Prime Minister"
"The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim"
"The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman"
"The Case of the Missing Will"
Partners in crime
"A Fairy in the Flat" Partners in Crime
"A Pot of Tea"
"The Affair of the Pink Pearl"
"The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger"
"Finessing the King/The Gentleman Dressed in Newspaper"
"The Case of the Missing Lady"
"Blindman’s Buff"
"The Man in the Mist"
"The Crackler"
"The Sunningdale Mystery"
"The House of Lurking Death"
"The Unbreakable Alibi"
"The Clergyman’s Daughter/The Red House"
"The Ambassador’s Boots"
The Mysterious Mr Quin
"The Coming of Mr. Quin"
"The Shadow on the Glass"
"At the 'Bells and Motley'"
"The Sign in the Sky"
"The Soul of the Croupier"
"The Man from the Sea"
"The Voice in the Dark"
"The Face of Helen"
"The Dead Harlequin"
"The Bird with the Broken Wing"
"The World’s End"
"Harlequin’s Lane"
The Thirteen Problems
"The Tuesday Night Club"
"The Idol House of Astarte"
"Ingots of Gold"
"The Blood-Stained Pavement"
"Motive v. Opportunity"
"The Thumb Mark of St. Peter"
"The Blue Geranium"
"The Companion"
"The Four Suspects"
"A Christmas Tragedy"
"The Herb of Death"
"The Affair at the Bungalow"
4.2. Television
• Love from a Stranger (Based on the stage play of the same name from the short story Philomel Cottage)
• The Murder at the Vicarage
• Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
• Partners in Crime
• Sparkling Cyanide
• Spider's Web (Based on the stage play of the same name)
• A Caribbean Mystery
• Sparkling Cyanide
• Murder with Mirrors
4.3. Graphic novels
• The Murder on the Links (2007)
• Murder on the Orient Express (2007)
• Death on the Nile (2007)
• The Secret of Chimneys (2007)
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (2007
• The Mystery of the Blue Train (2007)
• The Man in the Brown (2007)
• Dumb Witness (2009)
• Cards on the Table (2010)
• Five Little Pigs (2010)
• Dead Man's Folly (2012)
• Evil Under the Sun (2013)
5. Death
5.1. Agatha Christie's estate and subsequent ownership of works
Agatha set her own private company Agatha Christie Limited to hold rights to her work, and around 1959 she had also transferred her 278-acre home, Greenway Estate, to her daughter Rosalind. When Christie was almost 80 years old, she sold a 51% stake in Agatha Christie Limited to Booker Books (better known as Booker Author's Division), a subsidiary of the British food and transport conglomerate Booker-McConnell, the founder of the Booker Prize for literature, which later increased its stake to 64%. Agatha Christie Limited remains the owner of the worldwide rights for over 80 of Christie's novels and short stories, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films.
5.2. Last public appearance and peaceful death
She had her last public appearance at opening night of the 1974 film version of Murder on the Orient Express starring Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot. Her verdict: a good adaptation with the minor point that Poirot's moustaches weren't luxurious enough.
Dame Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her Winterbrook House. After very happy life and extremely successful carrier, she closed her eyes peacefully because she knew that she accomplished everything she wanted.
Literature
1. http://www.agathachristie.com/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie
3. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002005/
4. http://christie.mysterynet.com/
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