Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

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Before marrying and starting a family in London, she had served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches. The literary critic Edmund Wilson described her prose as banal and her characterisations as superficial.

Christie frequently stayed at Abney Hall, Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts, and based at least two stories there: a short story, " The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", in the story collection of the same name and the novel After the Funeral.

The play was temporarily closed in 2020 because of COVID-19 lockdowns in London before it reopened in 2021. She was the youngest of three children born to Frederick Alvah Miller, "a gentleman of substance", [3] and his wife Clarissa Margaret "Clara" Miller, née Boehmer. Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15September 1890, into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon. Pendergast, Bruce (2004), Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie, Victoria, BC, Canada: Trafford, p.

Another of her lesser-known characters is Parker Pyne, a retired civil servant who assists unhappy people in an unconventional manner.

At 18, Christie wrote her first short story, "The House of Beauty", while recovering in bed from an illness. Her later novel The Pale Horse was based on a suggestion from Harold Davis, the chief pharmacist at UCH. Margaret and Nathaniel had no children together, but Nathaniel had a 17-year-old son, Fred Miller, from his previous marriage. But something that reminds you of a happy day or happy thing, that’s the thing that almost breaks you in two. Like her, I appreciate a simple black dress; it doesn’t show dirt, is neat and can be worn on all occasions, anywhere.

viii Guns, knives, garrottes, tripwires, blunt instruments, and even a hatchet were also used, but "Christie never resorted to elaborate mechanical or scientific means to explain her ingenuity," [125] :57 according to John Curran, author and literary adviser to the Christie estate. The book came about from her reluctance to let others tell her story, as she explained to her agent Edmund Cork of Hughes Massie. Their experiences travelling and living abroad are reflected in novels such as Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and Appointment with Death. In 2023 a life-size bronze statue of Christie sitting on a park bench holding a book was unveiled in Wallingford.While it may offer little in the way of startling revelations, where Worsley’s book excels is in bringing a broader historical perspective to Christie’s life and work, and her enthusiasm is infectious. The book was supposedly started on 2 April 1950 at the expedition house at Nimrud where she was working on the excavation of that ancient city with her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan. After keeping the submission for several months, John Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, provided that Christie change how the solution was revealed. We see Agatha’s mother, father, grandparents, her sister and brother, her husbands, her child and grandson through her eyes. The Doctor Who episode " The Unicorn and the Wasp" (17 May 2008) stars Fenella Woolgar as Christie, and explains her disappearance as being connected to aliens.