Agatha Christie
Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was a British writer who wrote mysteries, psychological fiction, plays, and poetry. That is an almost laughably cryptic basic description of one of the bestselling writers in publishing. Currently, it is estimated that her books have sold approximately two billion copies. Her estate estimates that she is the most widely published author or text after the Bible and Shakespeare. She has been translated into 103 languages. Not shabby for a upper middle-class girl who liked lab work in chemistry and pharmaceuticals — and who liked to write.
She bestrides the world of mysteries like a colossus. She is often considered formulaic in her approach, “cookie-cutter,” but any respectful reading quickly dispels that envious evaluation. She wrote sixty-seven detective novels and fourteen short-story collections, intimidating enough, and influential beyond all measure for a century now. She also wrote a series of novels under the name of Mary Westmacott which astonish anyone who reads them not as gothic romance, as they were marketed, but as psychological surgeries, merciless analytical examinations of women at the sharp end of reality. She often wrote with humor, with a sharp and sassy satirical eye, and she was capable of a sensitive pathos with the people who were collateral damage in her so-called “whodunits.” Remarkably, she had a cool and ambivalent attitude toward her heroes and heroines, including Miss Marple and the great Hercule Poirot.
Agatha Christie is a complex and complicated writer. I invite you to read her as comfort fare, which she is, and I invite you to read her as a twentieth-century novelist, which she is in a circumspect and mysterious way. Enjoy!
Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime
Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime
From Poirot to Miss Marple, from The Mousetrap to Witness for the Prosecution, this a fascinating look at the life and work of Agatha Christie, the world's most successful and popular crime writer.
Agatha Christie was not only the most successful author of detective stories the world has ever known, she was also a mystery in herself, giving only the rarest interviews—declining absolutely to become any sort of public figure—and a mystery, too, in the manner in which she achieved her astonishing success.
Distinguished crime novelist (and acclaimed critic) H. R. F. Keating brings together a dozen noted writers from both sides of the Atlantic to throw light on the ever-intriguing Dame Agatha. Some essays analyze Christie’s art itself; some explain the reasons for her success—not just the books, but also in film and theatre.
The myriad of critical angles explored here are penetrating, affectionate, enthusiastic, analytical, and even funny. Together, they give an almost unique insight into the life and work of the First Lady of Crime.
Includes essays by Sophie Hannah, H. R. F. Keating, Elizabeth Walter, Julian Symons, Edmund Crispin, Michael Gilbert, Emma Lathen, Colin Watson, Celia Fremlin, Dorothy B. Hughes, J. C. Trewin, Philip Jenkinson, William Weaver, and Christianna Brand.
Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie began writing mysteries during the World War I and wrote over one hundred novels, plays, and short story collections. She was still writing to great acclaim until her death in 1976, and her books have now sold over one billion copies in English and another billion in over one hundred foreign languages. Yet Agatha Christie was always a very private person, and while Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple became household names, the Queen of Crime was a complete enigma to all but her closest friends.