Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, née Miller, better known by her first husband's surname as Agatha Christie. Born September 15, 1890 - died January 12, 1976. English writer.
Agatha Christie's books have been published in over 4 billion copies and translated into more than 100 languages.
She also holds the record for the maximum number of theatrical productions of a work. Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap was first performed in 1952 and is still shown continuously. At the ten-year anniversary of the play at the Ambassador Theater in London, in an interview with ITN television, Agatha Christie admitted that she did not consider the play the best to be staged in London, but the public liked it, and she herself goes to the play several times a year.
Her parents were wealthy immigrants from the United States. She was the youngest daughter in the Miller family. The Miller family had two more children: Margaret Frary (1879-1950) and a son, Louis "Monty" Montan (1880-1929). Agatha received a good education at home, in particular music, and only stage fright prevented her from becoming a musician.
During the First World War, Agatha worked as a nurse in a hospital; she loved the profession and described it as “one of the most rewarding professions a person can engage in.” She also worked as a pharmacist in a pharmacy, which subsequently left an imprint on her work: 83 crimes in her works were committed through poisoning.
Agatha married for the first time on Christmas Day in 1914 to Colonel Archibald Christie, with whom she had been in love for several years - even when he was a lieutenant. They had a daughter, Rosalind. This period was the beginning creative path Agatha Christie. In 1920, Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. There is an assumption that the reason for Christie’s turn to the detective was a dispute with her older sister Madge (who had already proven herself to be a writer) that she, too, could create something worthy of publication. Only the seventh publishing house published the manuscript in a circulation of 2,000 copies. The aspiring writer received a fee of £25.
In 1926, Agatha's mother died. Late that year, Agatha Christie's husband Archibald admitted to infidelity and asked for a divorce because he had fallen in love with fellow golfer Nancy Neal. After an argument in early December 1926, Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving a letter to her secretary in which she claimed to be heading to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused a loud public outcry, since the writer already had fans of her work. For 11 days, nothing was known about Christie's whereabouts.
Agatha's car was found, and her fur coat was found inside. A few days later the writer herself was discovered. As it turns out, Agatha Christie registered under the name Teresa Neil at the small spa hotel Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now Old Swan Hotel). Christie offered no explanation for her disappearance, and two doctors diagnosed her with amnesia caused by a head injury. The reasons for the disappearance of Agatha Christie were analyzed by British psychologist Andrew Norman in his book The Finished Portrait, where he, in particular, argues that the hypothesis of traumatic amnesia does not stand up to criticism, since Agatha Christie's behavior indicated the opposite: she registered in a hotel under the name of her husband’s mistress, she spent time playing the piano, spa treatments, and visiting the library. However, after studying all the evidence, Norman came to the conclusion that there was a dissociative fugue caused by a severe mental disorder.
According to another version, the disappearance was deliberately planned by her in order to take revenge on her husband, whom the police would inevitably suspect of the murder of the writer.
Despite mutual affection at the beginning, Archibald and Agatha Christie's marriage ended in divorce in 1928.
In 1930, while traveling around Iraq, at excavations in Ur, she met her future husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan. He was 15 years younger than her. Agatha Christie said about her marriage that for an archaeologist a woman should be as old as possible, because then her value increases significantly. Since then, she periodically spent several months a year in Syria and Iraq on expeditions with her husband; this period of her life was reflected in the autobiographical novel “Tell How You Live.” Agatha Christie lived in this marriage for the rest of her life, until her death in 1976.
Thanks to Christie's trips to the Middle East with her husband, several of her works took place there. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in or around Torquay, Christie's birthplace. The 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express was written at the Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. In room 411 of the hotel where Agatha Christie lived, she is now memorial museum.
Christie often stayed at the mansion Abney Hall in Cheshire, which belonged to her brother-in-law James Watts. At least two of Christie's works were set on this estate: The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, a story also included in the collection of the same name, and the novel After the Funeral. “Abney became an inspiration to Agatha; hence the descriptions of such places as Stiles, Chimneys, Stonegates, and other houses, which in one degree or another represent Abney, were taken.”
In 1956, Agatha Christie was awarded the Order of the British Empire, and in 1971, for her achievements in the field of literature, Agatha Christie was awarded the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the holders of which also receive noble title"lady" used before a name. Three years earlier, in 1968, Agatha Christie's husband, Max Mallowan, was also awarded the title of Knight of the Order of the British Empire for his achievements in the field of archaeology.
In 1958, the writer headed the English Detective Club.
Between 1971 and 1974, Christie's health began to deteriorate, but despite this, she continued to write. Experts from the University of Toronto examined Christie's writing style during these years and suggested that Agatha Christie suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
In 1975, when she was completely weakened, Christie transferred all rights to her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson.
The writer died on January 12, 1976 at home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire after a short cold and was buried in the village of Cholsey.
Agatha Christie's autobiography, which the writer graduated in 1965, ends with the words: “Thank you, Lord, for my good life and for all the love that was given to me.”
Christie's only daughter, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, also lived to the age of 85 and died on October 28, 2004 in Devon. Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, inherited the rights to some literary works Agatha Christie, and his name is still associated with the Agatha Christie Limited Foundation.
In an interview with the British television company BBC in 1955, Agatha Christie said that she spent her evenings knitting with friends or family, while in her head she was busy thinking about a new storyline, by the time she sat down to write a novel, the plot was ready from start to finish. By her own admission, the idea for a new novel could have come anywhere. Ideas were entered into a special notebook full of various notes about poisons and newspaper articles about crimes. The same thing happened with the characters. One of the characters created by Agatha had a real-life prototype - Major Ernest Belcher, who at one time was the boss of Agatha Christie's first husband, Archibald Christie. It was he who became the prototype for Pedler in the 1924 novel “The Man in the Brown Suit” about Colonel Race.
Agatha Christie was not afraid to address social issues in her works. For example, at least two of Christie's novels (The Five Little Pigs and Ordeal by Innocence) depicted miscarriages of justice involving the death penalty. In general, many of Christie’s books describe various negative aspects of English justice of that time.
The writer has never made crimes of a sexual nature the theme of her novels. Unlike today's detective stories, there are practically no scenes of violence, pools of blood or rudeness in her works. “The detective story was a story with a moral. Like everyone who wrote and read these books, I was against the criminal and for the innocent victim. It could not have occurred to anyone that the time would come when detective stories would be read for the scenes of violence described in them, for the sake of obtaining sadistic pleasure from cruelty for the sake of cruelty...” - she wrote in her autobiography. In her opinion, such scenes dull the feeling of compassion and do not allow the reader to focus on the main theme of the novel.
Agatha Christie considered her best work to be the novel “Ten Little Indians.” The rocky islet on which the novel takes place is copied from life - this is the island of Burgh in southern Britain. Readers also appreciated the book - it has the biggest sales in stores, but to comply with political correctness it is now sold under the title “And Then There Were None.”
In her work, Agatha Christie demonstrates the conservatism of her political views, which is quite typical for the English mentality. A striking example is the story “The Clerk's Story” from the series about Parker Pyne, about one of the heroes of which it is said: “He had some kind of Bolshevik complex.” A number of works - "The Big Four", "The Orient Express", "The Captivity of Cerberus" - feature immigrants from the Russian aristocracy, who enjoy the author's unfailing sympathy. In the aforementioned story, "The Clerk's Tale," Mr. Pine's client becomes involved in a group of agents who are passing secret blueprints of Britain's enemies to the League of Nations. But according to Pine’s decision, a legend is invented for the hero that he is carrying jewelry that belongs to a beautiful Russian aristocrat and saves them together with the owner from agents of Soviet Russia.
The most famous characters from Agatha Christie's novels:
In 1920, Christie published her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which had previously been rejected by British publishers five times. Soon she published a whole series of works featuring a Belgian detective. Hercule Poirot: 33 novels, 1 play and 54 short stories.
Continuing the tradition of the English masters of the detective genre, Agatha Christie created a pair of heroes: the intellectual Hercule Poirot and the comical, diligent, but not very smart Captain Hastings. If Poirot and Hastings were largely copied from Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, then the old maid Miss Marple is a collective image reminiscent of the main characters of the writers M. Z. Braddon and Anna Catherine Green.
Miss Marple appeared in the 1927 short story “The Tuesday Night Club.” The prototype of Miss Marple was Agatha Christie’s grandmother, who, according to the writer, “was a good-natured person, but always expected the worst from everyone and everything, and with frightening regularity her expectations were justified.”
Like Arthur Conan Doyle from Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie was tired of her hero Hercule Poirot by the end of the 30s, but unlike Conan Doyle, she did not dare to “kill” the detective while he was at the peak of his popularity. According to the writer’s grandson, Matthew Pritchard, of the characters she invented, Christie liked Miss Marple more - “an old, smart, traditional English lady.”
During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, The Curtain (1940) and The Sleeping Murder, with which she intended to end the series of novels about Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, respectively. However, the books were published only in the 70s.
Colonel Reis(eng. Colonel Race) appears in four novels by Agatha Christie. The Colonel is an agent of British intelligence, he travels around the world in search of international criminals. Reis is a member of MI5's spy department. He is a tall, well-built, tanned man.
He first appears in The Man in the Brown Suit, a spy mystery set in... South Africa. He also appears in two Hercule Poirot novels, Cards on the Table and Death on the Nile, where he assists Poirot in his investigation. IN last time he appears in the 1944 novel Sparkling Cyanide, where he investigates the murder of an old friend. In this novel, Reis has already reached old age.
Parker Pine(English: Parker Pyne) is the hero of 12 stories included in the collection “Parker Pyne Investigates”, as well as partially in the collections “The Secret of the Regatta and Other Stories” and “Trouble in Pollensa and Other Stories”. The Parker Pyne series is not detective fiction in the generally accepted sense. The plot is usually not based on a crime, but on the story of Pine's clients who, for various reasons, are unhappy with their lives. It is these dissatisfaction that brings clients to Pine's agency. In this series of works, Miss Lemon first appears, who leaves her job with Pine to become a secretary to Hercule Poirot.
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford(eng. Tommy and Tuppence Beresford), full names Thomas Beresford and Prudence Cowley, are a young married couple of amateur detectives, first appearing in the 1922 novel The Mysterious Assailant, not yet married. They begin their lives with blackmail (for money and out of interest), but soon discover that private investigation brings more money and pleasures. In 1929, Tuppence and Tomie appeared in the short story collection Partners in Crime, in 1941 in N or M?, in 1968 in Snap Your Finger Just Once, and most recently in the 1973 novel The Gates of Doom. , which was the last Agatha Christie novel written, although not the last published. Unlike the rest of Agatha Christie's detectives, Tommy and Tuppence age along with the real world and with each subsequent novel. So, to last novel, where they appear, they are nearly seventy.
Superintendent Battle(eng. Superintendent Battle) is a fictional detective, the hero of five novels by Agatha Christie. Battle is entrusted with sensitive cases related to secret societies and organizations, as well as cases affecting the interests of the state and state secrets. The Superintendent is a highly successful Scotland Yard employee; he is a cultured and intelligent policeman who rarely shows his emotions. Christie says little about him: thus, Battle’s name remains unknown. About Battle's family it is known that his wife's name is Mary, and that they have five children.
Novels (detectives) by Agatha Christie:
1920 The Mysterious Affair at Styles
1922 Secret Adversary
1923 Murder on the Golf Course Murder on the Links
1924 Man in the Brown Suit
1924 Poirot investigates Poirot Investigates (11 stories):
The Mystery of the Star of the West
Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
The mystery of a cheap apartment
Murder at Hunter's Lodge
Million dollar theft
Pharaoh's Revenge
Trouble at the Grand Metropolitan Hotel
Kidnapping of the Prime Minister
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
The mystery of the death of the Italian count
Missing will
1925 Secret of Chimneys Castle
1926 Murder of Roger Ackroyd
1927 Big Four Big Four
1928 Mystery of the Blue Train
1929 Partners in Crime
1929 Seven Dials Mystery
1930 Murder at the Vicarage
1930 The Mysterious Mr. Keene Quin
1931 Sittaford Mystery, the
1932 Endhouse Mystery Peril at End House
1933 The Hound of Death (12 stories):
Death Hound
Red signal
Fourth man
Gypsy
Lamp
I'll come for you, Mary!
Witness for the prosecution
The Mystery of the Blue Jug
The Amazing Incident of Sir Arthur Carmichael
Call of the Wings
The last seance
SOS
1933 Death of Lord Edgware Lord Edgware Dies
1933 The Thirteen Problems
1934 Murder on the Orient Express Murder on the Orient
1934 Parker Pyne Investigates
1934 The Listerdale Mystery (12 stories):
Listerdale Mystery
Philomela Cottage
Girl on the train
A song for six pence
The Metamorphosis of Edward Robinson
Accident
Jane is looking for a job
Fruitful Sunday
The Adventure of Mr. Eastwood
Red ball
Rajah's emerald
a swan song
1935 Tragedy in three acts Three Act Tragedy
1935 Why not Evans? Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
1935 Death in the Clouds
1936 The Alphabet Murders The A.B.C. Murders
1936 Murder in Mesopotamia
1936 Cards on the Table
1937 Silent Witness Dumb Witness
1937 Death on the Nile
1937 Murder in the Mews (4 stories):
Murder in the backyard
Incredible theft
Dead Man's Mirror
Triangle in Rhodes
1938 Appointment with Death
1939 Десять негритят Ten Little Niggers
1939 Murder is Easy
1939 Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
1939 The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
1940 Sad Cypress
1941 Evil Under the Sun
1941 N or M? N or M?
1941 One, two - fasten the buckle One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
1942 The Body in the Library
1942 Five Little Pigs
1942 With one finger, Vacation in Limstock, Moving Finger, Finger of Destiny
1944 Zero Hour
1944 Towards Zero Towards Zero
1944 Sparkling Cyanide
1945 Death Comes as the End
1946 The Hollow
1947 Labors of Hercules The Labors of Hercules
1948 Coast of Fortune Taken at the Flood
1948 Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
1949 Crooked House
1950 A Murder is Announced
1950 Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
1951 Baghdad meetings They Came to Baghdad
1951 Quiet “The Hunted Dog” The Under Dog and Other Stories
1952 Mrs. McGinty died Mrs McGinty's Dead
1952 They Do It with Mirrors
1953 A Pocket Full of Rye
1953 After the Funeral
1955 Hickory Dickory Dock / Hickory Dickory Death
1955 Destination Unknown
1956 Dead Man's Folly
1957 At 4.50 from Paddington 4.50 from Paddington
1957 Ordeal by Innocence
1959 Cat Among the Pigeons
1960 The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (6 stories):
The Adventure of Christmas Pudding
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
Quiet
Black currant
Dream
Lost Key
1961 Villa " White horse» The Pale Horse
1961 Double Sin and Other Stories
1962 And, cracking, the mirror rings... The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
1963 The Clocks
1964 Caribbean Mystery
1965 At Bertram's Hotel
1966 Third Girl Third Girl
1967 Endless Night
1968 Snap Your Finger Just Once By the Pricking of My Thumbs
1969 Halloween Party
1970 Passenger to Frankfurt
1971 Nemesis Nemesis
1971 The Golden Ball and Other Stories
1972 Elephants Can Remember
1973 Gates of Fate Poster of Fate
1974 Poirot’s Early Cases (18 stories):
Case at the Victory Ball
The Disappearance of the Clapham Cook
Cornish mystery
The Adventure of Johnny Waverly
Double evidence
King of Clubs
Lemesurier's legacy
Lost Mine
Plymouth Express
Box of candies
Submarine drawings
Apartment on the fourth floor
Double sin
The Mystery of Market Basing
Vespiary
Lady under the veil
Marine investigation
How wonderful everything is in your little garden...
1975 Curtain Curtain
1976 Sleeping Murder
1979 Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories (Collection of Stories):
Holy place
Unusual joke
Measure of death
The Caretaker's Case
The case of the best of the maids
Miss Marple talks
Doll in the fitting room
In the twilight of the mirror
1991 Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories (Collection of stories):
Service "Harlequin"
Second gong strike
It's about love
Yellow irises
magnolia flower
Case in Pollensa
Together with the dog
Mysterious incident during the regatta
1997 The Harlequin Tea Set
1997 While the Light Lasts and Other Stories (Collection of stories):
The house of his dreams
Actress
On the edge
Adventure at Christmas
Lonely God
Manx Gold
Behind the walls
The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest
As long as the light lasts...
In 1919, the Christie couple had a daughter, Rosalind.
In 1928, her marriage to Colonel Christie ended in divorce; in 1930, Agatha Christie married archaeologist Max Mallone.
Agatha Christie's first detective novel, The Mysterious Crime at Styles, was published in 1920. main character whose private detective, Belgian Hercule Poirot, later became the hero of numerous novels by the writer. (Poirot dies in one of Christie's last novels, The Curtain (1975)).
In 1930, a new character appeared in the novel "Murder at the Vicarage" - a lover of private investigation, the insightful Miss Marple.
Agatha Christie - "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" (1926), "Murder on the Orient Express" (1934), "Death on the Nile" (1937), "Ten Little Indians" (1939), and "Meeting in Baghdad" (1957), " What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw" (1957). Among her later novels, The Dark of Night (1968), The Halloween Party (1969) and The Gates of Destiny (1973) stand out.
Christie also performed successfully as a playwright - 16 of her plays were staged in London, and films were made from some of them. The plays "Witness for the Prosecution", staged in 1953 in London and in 1954-1955 in New York, and "The Mousetrap", staged in 1952 in London and withstood the largest number of performances in the entire history of the theater, enjoyed great success.
In 1974, the writer made her last public appearance at the premiere of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express.
Christie was awarded the Order of the British Empire, 2nd class.
In 1971, the writer was awarded the noble title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Agatha Christie is one of the symbols of Great Britain. She is one of the world's most famous crime fiction authors, and her books are the most published after the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. Agatha Christie's books have been translated into more than 100 languages.
In 2005, an unknown manuscript by Agatha Christie was discovered by a specialist in the writer's work, John Curran, in the attic of her country house. After several years of painstaking work, he managed to restore the text and establish the history of the creation of the novel "The Taming of Cerberus", which was published in 2009.
Agatha Christie's grandson Matthew Pritchard discovered 27 tapes in the closet of the writer's house on the Greenway estate, on which Christie herself talks about her life and work for 13 hours.
Agatha Christie's house on the Greenway estate was open to visitors. In 2000, the estate was transferred to the management of the National Trust for the protection of cultural monuments. For eight years, only the garden, boat house and paths were open to visitors, while the house itself underwent extensive reconstruction.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
She has as many names as possible options the outcome of detective novels written by her. In addition to the traditional name Agatha (which, by the way, is only the second, not the first), her parents gave her two more - Mary, and also Clarissa.
Moreover, Christie is not the maiden name of the writer who gave the world the greatest detective phrases in the form of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Agatha Miller has written more than 60 detective novels, as well as two dozen plays and numerous collections of short stories. Needless to say, how often these literary works have received all kinds of productions and film adaptations!
Childhood, girlhood and first marriage
The childhood city in which the famous writer was born is Torquay (Devon County), and the exact date of birth is September 15, 1890. Thanks to her wealthy parents (they were immigrants from the United States), Agatha received a thorough education at home.
Biographers unanimously emphasize the undoubted musical talents of the future star of the English detective genre. However, shyness stood between her and the fate of the performer, influencing her future biography. And then, when she turned 24, marriage entered her life, finally burying the opportunity to shine on stage.
Colonel Archibald Christie was the symbol of her love for several years; for the first time she saw Lieutenant Archibald in front of her, but only when he rose to the rank of colonel did their happiness together become a reality.
Agatha gave birth to her first husband, Rosalind, but this did not save the first marriage, which the future famous writer was awarded with fate. Her mother died in 1926, and two years later Archie insisted on a divorce. By that time he was already in love with another woman. It was a banal affair between two golf partners.
Agatha Christie was worried to the point of madness, which led her to memory loss. However, treatment at a boarding house helped her continue raising her beloved daughter. However, gossips claim that this was an attempt to take revenge on the dissolute ex-husband: the police found an empty car with collected things, and she ex-wife disappeared without a trace, and suspicion of a possible murder naturally fell on Archie. However, the matter never came to an arrest...
Start of career and second marriage
1920 was the year of her writing debut. Interestingly, before its publication, various British publishers rejected the opus of the future national literary star five times! Apparently, the beginning was inspiring, and the writer soon produced a whole series of novels with a Belgian detective as the main character.
Agatha invented the equally famous Miss Marple later. Subsequently, journalists repeatedly asked Christie the question of whether she herself was the prototype of her popular heroine? To which the writer invariably answered: they say, I don’t see any similarity between us!
According to her version, the attic of one of her grandmothers' house turned out to be the place where an old reticule was stored. All Agatha Christie did was free him from bread crumbs, two pennies and silk lace, and this served as the birth of the image of the famous detective.
In 1930, Agatha found a more serious candidate for a husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan. The young people met when Mrs. Christie was traveling in Iraq and came across excavations at Ur. Since then, the writer liked the Asian voyages so much that the couple annually visited Iraq and neighboring Syria.
The First World War began, and Agatha devoted herself to working in a hospital, and subsequently in a pharmacy. So it is not surprising her ability to understand poisons and professional knowledge in this area.
They say that when Agatha Christie met the future university professor in London, their love flared up like a dry camel thorn on a hot dune. And this despite the fact that Christie was already 40 at that time, and her chosen one turned out to be fifteen years younger.
They got married two months later and did not part for half a century! It was a deep love and mutual respect that began with honeymoon, which passed, among other things, through the territory of the USSR. This year was also the year of the birth of her deeply emancipated Miss Marple.
Subsequently, by the way, the writer said with a smile that she and her husband were both doing what they loved. And being the wife of an archaeologist, according to her, is wonderful because over the years a woman is of increasing interest to her chosen one.
Honor and respect, Hercule, Hastings and Marple
The dizzying career that followed gave the world numerous detective stories that later became classics. In 1958, the writer was awarded the right to head the Detective Club of Britain.
And in 1971 she was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the literary field. At the same time, Christie added a piece of the noble title “daim” to her three names. Alas, five years later she passed away. A cold eventually brought her to the cemetery in Cholsey. This happened in her native Wallingford (Oxfordshire).
To be fair, it should be noted that Agatha Christie copied her first pair of heroes from an equally famous pair. But, nevertheless, the writer managed to make them so original that this borrowing was soon forgotten.
On the contrary, it later became a rule of good manners to say that the intellectual Poirot and the somewhat comical, diligent and not very smart Hastings were worthy successors to the work of the English authors of the detective genre.
But the image of the old maid Marple, which Agatha later created, became the arithmetic mean of the heroines of her colleagues Braddon and Green. Christie led her Hercule from the very beginning of her (and his!) career (which began with The Mysterious Affair at Styles) through the twists and turns of 26 novels, until his “death.” This happened in 1975, when Christie’s career ended with “The Curtain...” or Poirot’s last case.
The mouthpiece of emancipation
However, her grandson Matthew Pritchard argued that the writer loved her detective more - a smart, old, traditional English lady. The secret is simple: Christie is an ardent advocate of emancipation. First of all, this was reflected in her usual field of activity.
Agatha Christie more than once put the postulates of emancipation into the mouths of her heroines. One who is familiar in the smallest details with the great literary heritage Christie will confirm that the theme of her novels has never been sexual crimes.
And scenes of violence, puddles of blood and a sea of rudeness are not inherent in her work. This makes her imperishable works noticeably different from modern opuses of the detective genre. Agatha believed that all this unnecessary surroundings does not allow the reader to fully sympathize and distracts from the main topic.
It is interesting that, according to Christie herself, the undoubted pinnacle of her work is the story of ten little blacks. Moreover, the fictional island, where ominous and mysterious murders took place, has a very real “twin”. Agatha Christie "copied" the cliffs rising from the sea from Burgh, an island whose location is the south of England.
It was this novel that was destined to become a record holder for the number of copies sold. Political correctness, however, has brought its own changes to Christie’s creative process: its title has now been changed to “And Then There Were None.”
Throughout the reading world, she is given the title “Queen of Crime,” but Agatha herself has said more than once that she prefers the title “Duchess of Death.” Looking at the pretty photo elderly woman, it’s hard to believe that it was in her sophisticated brain that hundreds of murders were born. Curious but true: firearms in her literary delights she preferred poisons. In her opinion, they were excitingly attractive.
History has preserved the statement of her great admirer Winston Churchill, who once said that Christie made more money from the murders than any other woman, including the notorious Lucrezia Borgia.
Having a rich biography, Agatha left behind a legacy that has been distributed around the world in more than a hundred languages in more than two billion copies. Christie is an author whose books are the most widely read in the world.
And your social status She always defined herself as a housewife: one of the writer’s hobbies was real estate.
Christy Agatha, née Miller
English writer, “queen of detective stories.” Author of more than a hundred stories, 17 plays, more than 70 detective novels, translated into dozens of languages.
Born in Torquay, Devon, into a wealthy family, she received a good home, in particular, and only fear public speaking prevented her from choosing the path of a professional performer.
During the First World War, Agatha Miller worked as a nurse in a military hospital and studied pharmacology, thanks to which she gained knowledge about poisons, which was later used in the creation of detective novels. At the same time, in between shifts, I began writing detective stories. In her own words, Agatha began composing from a simple imitation that had already been published in magazines. The young writer believed that readers would be prejudiced against the fact that the author of detective stories was a woman, and wanted to take the pseudonym Martin West or Mostyn Gray. The publisher insisted on keeping it proper names and the writer’s surname, convincing her that the name Agatha was rare and memorable. In 1914 she married Major Archibald Christie, who gave her a name, but did not make her happy.
In 1920, Christie published her first detective story, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles.” Here Christie first brought out the amateur detective Hercule Poirot, so beloved by readers, who later turned out to be the hero of 25 of her detective novels. Among the novels where Poirot solves crimes with constant success is the classic detective story The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
The debut of another “private detective” - Miss Marple - took place in 1930, when the novel “Murder at the Vicarage” was published. In 1926, Agatha's mother died, and her husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, demanded a divorce. Agatha Christie's reaction was so unexpected that the writer herself could hardly explain it in the future: Agatha disappeared.
For several days they searched intensely for her and finally found her in a hotel, registered under the name ... of the woman her husband was going to marry.
In 1928, the marriage of Agatha and Archibald Christie, from which their daughter Rosalind was born, broke up. In 1930, Agatha Christie married a second time, to the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. Since then, she periodically spent several months a year in Syria and Iraq on expeditions with (hence the “oriental” series of her novels): “Murder on the Orient Express”, “Baghdad Encounter”.
Christie also performed successfully as a playwright - 16 of her plays were staged in London, and films were made from some of them. Particularly successful were “The Witness for the Prosecution” and “The Mousetrap,” staged in 1952 in London and having the largest number of performances in the history of the theater.
In 1971, Agatha Christie was awarded the Order of the British Empire, 2nd class, for her achievements in the field of literature.
Her most famous novels: “Murder at the Vicarage”, “N or M?”, “Ten Little Indians”, “The Mystery of Fireplaces”, “Death on the Nile”, “Remembrance Day”, “Five Little Pigs”, “Death in the Clouds” and etc.
Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan (Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan), née Miller (Miller), better known by the name of her first husband as Agatha Christie was born September 15, 1890 in Torquay, Devon.
Her parents were wealthy immigrants from the United States. She was the youngest daughter. The Miller family had two more children: Margaret Frary (1879-1950) and a son, Louis "Monty" Montan (1880-1929). Agatha received a good education at home, in particular music, and only stage fright prevented her from becoming a musician.
During the First World War, Agatha worked as a nurse in a hospital; she loved the profession and described it as “one of the most rewarding professions a person can engage in.” She also worked as a pharmacist in a pharmacy, which subsequently left an imprint on her work: 83 crimes in her works were committed through poisoning.
Agatha got married for the first time on Christmas Day in 1914 for Colonel Archibald Christie, with whom she had been in love for several years - even when he was a lieutenant. They had a daughter, Rosalind. This period marked the beginning of Agatha Christie's creative career. In 1920 Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. There is an assumption that the reason for Christie’s turn to the detective was a dispute with her older sister Madge (who had already proven herself to be a writer) that she, too, could create something worthy of publication. Only the seventh publishing house published the manuscript in a circulation of 2,000 copies. The aspiring writer received a fee of £25. In 1922 together with her husband, Agatha Christie made a round-the-world sea voyage along the route Great Britain - Bay of Biscay - South Africa - Australia and New Zealand- Hawaiian Islands - Canada - USA - UK.
In 1926 Agatha's mother died. Late that year, Agatha Christie's husband Archibald admitted to infidelity and asked for a divorce because he had fallen in love with fellow golfer Nancy Neal. After a quarrel early December 1926 Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving a letter to her secretary in which she stated that she was heading to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused a loud public outcry, since the writer already had fans of her work. For 11 days, nothing was known about Christie's whereabouts.
Agatha's car was found, and her fur coat was found inside. A few days later the writer herself was discovered. As it turns out, Agatha Christie registered under the name Teresa Neil at the small spa hotel Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now Old Swan Hotel). Christie gave no explanation for her disappearance, and two doctors diagnosed her with amnesia caused by a head injury.
Despite mutual affection at the beginning, Archibald and Agatha Christie's marriage ended in divorce in 1928.
In 1930 While traveling around Iraq, at excavations in Ur, she met her future husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan. He was 15 years younger than her. Agatha Christie said about her marriage that for an archaeologist a woman should be as old as possible, because then her value increases significantly. Since then, she periodically spent several months a year in Syria and Iraq on expeditions with her husband; this period of her life was reflected in the autobiographical novel “Tell How You Live.” Agatha Christie lived in this marriage for the rest of her life.
Thanks to Christie's trips to the Middle East with her husband, several of her works took place there. Other novels (such as Ten Little Indians) were set in or around Torquay, Christie's birthplace. Novel "Murder on the Orient Express" ( 1934) was written at the Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul (Turkey). Room 411 of the hotel where Agatha Christie lived is now her memorial museum. The Greenway Estate in Devon, which the couple bought in 1938, is under the protection of the Society for the Preservation of Monuments (National Trust).
Christie often stayed at the mansion Abney Hall in Cheshire, which belonged to James Watts, her sister's husband. At least two of Christie's works were set on this estate.
In 1956 Agatha Christie was awarded the Order of the British Empire, and in 1971 For her achievements in the field of literature, Agatha Christie was awarded the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the holders of which also acquire the noble title “lady”, used before their name. Three years earlier in 1968 Agatha Christie's husband, Max Mallowan, was also awarded the title of Knight of the Order of the British Empire for his achievements in the field of archaeology.
In 1958 The writer headed the English Detective Club.
Between 1971 and 1974 Christie's health began to deteriorate, but despite this, she continued to write. Experts from the University of Toronto examined Christie's writing style during these years and suggested that Agatha Christie suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
In 1975 When she became completely weak, Christie transferred all rights to her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson.
The writer died January 12, 1976 at her home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire after suffering from a short cold and was buried in the village of Cholsey.
Agatha Christie's books have been published in over 4 billion copies and translated into more than 100 languages.
She also holds the record for the maximum number of theatrical productions of a work. Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap was staged for the first time in 1952 and is still on continuous display today.
In 1920 Christie publishes her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which had previously been rejected by British publishers five times. Soon she has a whole series of works in which the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot acts: 33 novels, 1 play and 54 stories.
Continuing the tradition of the English masters of the detective genre, Agatha Christie created a pair of heroes: the intellectual Hercule Poirot and the comical, diligent, but not very smart Captain Hastings. If Poirot and Hastings were largely copied from Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, then the old maid Miss Marple is a collective image reminiscent of the main heroines of the writers M.Z. Braddon and Anna Catherine Green.
Miss Marple appeared in the story 1927 of the year “The Tuesday Night Club”. The prototype of Miss Marple was Agatha Christie’s grandmother, who, according to the writer, “was a good-natured person, but always expected the worst from everyone and everything, and with frightening regularity her expectations were justified.”
Like Arthur Conan Doyle from Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie was tired of her hero Hercule Poirot by the end of the 1930s, but unlike Conan Doyle, she did not decide to “kill” the detective while he was at the peak of his popularity. According to the writer’s grandson, Matthew Pritchard, of the characters she invented, Christie liked Miss Marple more - “an old, smart, traditional English lady.”
During World War II, Christie wrote two Curtain novels ( 1940 ) and "Sleeping Murder", which was intended to end the series of novels about Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, respectively. However, the books were published only in the 1970s.
Other Agatha Christie detectives:
Colonel Race appears in four Agatha Christie novels. The Colonel is an agent of British intelligence, he travels around the world in search of international criminals. Reis is a member of MI5's spy department. He is a tall, well-built, tanned man.
He first appears in The Man in the Brown Suit, a spy mystery set in South Africa. He also appears in two Hercule Poirot novels, Cards on the Table and Death on the Nile, where he assists Poirot in his investigation. He appears for the last time in the novel 1944 "Shimmering Cyanide", where he investigates the murder of his old friend. In this novel, Reis has already reached old age.
Parker Pyne is the hero of 12 stories included in the collection Parker Pyne Investigates, as well as partially in the collections The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories and Trouble in Pollensa and Other Stories. The Parker Pyne series is not detective fiction in the generally accepted sense. The plot is usually not based on a crime, but on the story of Pine's clients who, for various reasons, are unhappy with their lives. It is these dissatisfaction that brings clients to Pine's agency. In this series of works, Miss Lemon first appears, who leaves her job with Pine to become a secretary to Hercule Poirot.
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, full names Thomas Beresford and Prudence Cowley, are a young married couple of amateur detectives who first appear in the novel The Mysterious Assailant. 1922 years, not yet married. They begin their lives with blackmail (for money and out of interest), but soon discover that private investigation brings more money and pleasure. In 1929, Tuppence and Tomie appeared in the short story collection Partners in Crime, in 1941 in N or M?, in 1968 in Snap Your Finger Just Once, and most recently in the 1973 novel The Gates of Doom. , which was the last Agatha Christie novel written, although not the last published. Unlike the rest of Agatha Christie's detectives, Tommy and Tuppence age along with the real world and with each subsequent novel. So, by the last novel where they appear, they are nearly seventy.