Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was an English writer known for her detective novels and short story collections.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today we’re talking about the Grand Dame of the English whodunit, the J.K Rowling of selling books before there was a J.K. Rowling. Please meet our dreamer of the day, the “Queen of Crime,” Agatha Christie.
Agatha was born in 1890 in the seaside town of Torquay in Devon, England. She was the youngest of three children born into an upper middle class home. Agatha’s father Frederick was a successful American stockbroker and her Irish-born mother Clara took care of the house and her children’s early education. After her father’s sudden death when Agatha was 11, the family’s financial situation became more precarious and Agatha was sent to Paris to complete her education.
After finishing school, Agatha returned to England only to start a months’ long tour of the Middle East with her mother. While traveling, Agatha tried her hand at writing short stories and an early novel, but wasn’t able to get anything published. She did, however, meet her future husband, Archie Christie, while in Cairo. They married right before the outbreak of World War I.
During the war, Archie was sent to France to fight the Germans, while Agatha returned home to England. She worked as a nurse and eventually a chemist’s assistant on the home front. As the war raged across the Channel, Agatha started writing detective fiction in her downtime. She had always loved mystery novels, particularly the works of Wilkie Collins and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so it was a natural fit.
Agatha’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920. Her debut work introduced the world to the iconic Hercule Poirot, Agatha’s eccentric and egoistic Belgian detective with the little gray cells and a perfectly coiffed mustache.
Poirot reappeared in about 25 novels and many short stories. The elderly village spinster Miss Jane Marple, Agatha’s other iconic detective, first appeared in her novel Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.
Agatha’s first major literary success came with the publication of her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in 1926. It was met with massive international acclaim and became an immediate bestseller. No spoilers, but suffice it to say that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is an ingenious and innovative whodunit that still manages to amaze.
That same year, Agatha’s mother died and her husband requested a divorce in order to marry his mistress. Right after Archie asked for the divorce, Agatha disappeared. It was a legendary and frankly very strange incident that Agatha never fully explained. Like the plot of one of her novels, she told her maid that she was taking a drive to Newcastle and then vanished, leaving her empty car on the side of the road with no clue as to her whereabouts. The public outcry was enormous. The story was highly publicized and the public closely followed updates in the newspapers- it even made the front page of the New York Times. After several days, Agatha was found registered in a small hotel under the name of her husband’s mistress.
Though unlucky in love during her first marriage, Agatha had much better luck the second time around when she married archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930. With Mallowan, who was ten years her junior, Agatha began spending several months each year on archaeological expeditions in Iraq and Syria. She wrote many mystery novels set in these exotic locales, including Murder In Mesopotamia and Evil Under The Sun. She also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.
Agatha went on to write some 75 novels that almost always made best-seller lists, not to mention quite a few popular volumes of short stories. Her works include mystery classics like And Then There Were None, Murder On The Orient Express, and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?.
Agatha also wrote a number of well received plays. Her most famous, The Mousetrap, set a world record for the longest continuous run at one theatre—more than 21 years.
Another of her best-known plays, Witness for the Prosecution, was adapted into a successful 1957 film starring Marlene Dietrich and directed by Billy Wilder. Other notable film adaptations of her novels, of which there have been quite a few, include Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile.
Agatha’s works have been adapted for television many times over the years and are currently in the midst of a revival, with high quality remakes by the likes of the BBC, Amazon, and Netflix.
In acknowledgment of her incredible literary career, Agatha was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1971, three years after her husband had been knighted for his archaeological work. They were one of the few married couples where both partners received the honor. What a duo!
Dame Agatha died on January 12,1976 at age 85 from natural causes. With roughly 3 billion copies of her novels sold, translated into more than 103 languages, Guinness World Records lists her as the bestselling novelist of all time. Her wonderful whodunits continue to delight audiences today.
We’re taking a break for the weekend, but we’ll be back on Monday with the story of another incredible dreamer. Talk to you then!
This month of Encyclopedia Womannica is brought to you by Casper. Casper mattresses and products let today’s dreamers get the sleep they need to turn their ideas into reality.
Special thanks to the one and only Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and the brain behind this amazing collection of women.