Agatha Christie: The Queen of Mystery

Detective Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, Tuppence, and Tommy Beresford. All are famous in the fiction world for their marvelous feats of intelligence and bravery. All characters birthed from the brilliant mind of the Queen of Mystery herself, Agatha Christie.

One of the most widely celebrated and published authors of all time. Her books have only been out published by the Bible and Shakespeare. In her lifetime, she wrote and published over seventy-five books but who was she?

(The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019)

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in September of 1890 in South West England. She had two, much older, siblings, who were out of the house by the time she was born and therefore grew up much like an only child. Her father homeschooled her and so early on in her life, she developed a love of reading to pass time being home alone.

(Steinman, 2020b)

In the years between her childhood and her first book, Agatha met and married Colonel Archibald Christie. He was a pilot in the Royal Navy and their courtship whirlwind surrounded the years of the First World War. Even though they married in 1914 it wasn’t until after the war in 1918 that their marriage really began.

(“Mystery Books 1920-1929)

It started off well enough for the two of them. Agatha gave birth to her only child, her daughter Rosalind in 1919 and her first novel was published that same year. Her older sister began Agatha’s adventure into writing. She bet that Agatha could not write a good detective story and as any younger sibling would, Agatha set out to prove her wrong. At the time she worked at a dispensary which ended up giving her a profound knowledge of poisons that she used in many of her novels including her first. And thus, Detective Hercule Poirot entered the world in Christie’s debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

(Wagner, 2021)

The following years filled in Agatha’s publications with Poirot and a few of her stand-alone novels. In 1925 Agatha’s mother passed away and the same year her husband began an affair with a woman whom he met while golfing. All the turmoil sent Agatha into depression and in December she vanished. Her car was found abandoned on the side of a road and no one had any idea where she had gone. A nationwide search ensued with the press speculating far and wide what had happened to the famous mystery writer. Baffled police eventually found her Harrogate Hotel where she had registered under her husband’s mistress’s name. When they picked her up, she seemed confused, but no one knew what happened in those several days. Some said she disappeared to prove that she could vanish without a trace. Regardless the press and publicity she received from the incident drove her to never speak of it to anyone.

(Max Mallowan, n.d.)

Agatha and Archie divorced in 1928 and she wrote her first romance novel under the pen name Mary Westmacott in that same year. She followed her ambition to travel on the Orient Express, and it eventually ended up at an archaeological site where she met her second husband Max Mallowan, an archaeology professor. They married in 1930 and Agatha’s travels with him to various sites led her to discover many areas that became settings in her famous books.

Even after her death in 1976, Christie’s works continue to be a huge success in the literary world and more. Her books have sold over two billion copies worldwide. Her play The Mousetrap still holds the record for the world’s longest-running play.  Many different movies and TV adaptations have been made of her novels. The most current being Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot 2017 movie adaptation of The Murder on the Orient Express. A movie adaption of her novel Death on the Nile is coming in September 2021 more than forty years after Agatha’s death.

Interested in reading a Christie novel? Try These!

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Known for its startling reveal (you’ll never see it coming!) this book will change your standard of mystery.

And Then There Were None – Ten strangers are invited to an isolated island. Then rising tides and storms trap them and just as there is no way out someone dies….

Murder on the Orient Express – One of the most famous Christie stories. A murder on a train trapped by snow. The victim came to Poirot fearing someone may be out to get him. Which passenger hides a dark secret?

Sources Used:

Visual Bibliography:

https://www.vintag.es/2015/08/13-rare-photos-of-queen-of-crime-agatha.html

https://anygoodfillms.com/death-on-the-nile-trailer/