(estimates: 2 , average: 5,00 out of 5)

Name: Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
Birthday: September 15, 1890
Place of Birth: Torquay (UK)
Date of death: January 12, 1976
A place of death: Wallingford (Oxfordshire, UK)

Biography of Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie actually has a different name - Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan, née Miller, but she is better known under the name of Christie, her first husband. She has become popular for her detective stories, which not only contain a gripping story, but are also imbued with insight and intelligence.

Books by Agatha Christie are in the top three after the Bible and books by William Shakespeare. Her works have been published in many countries around the world. The works sold 120 million copies during the writer’s lifetime alone.

Christie was born in 1890 in Torquay. Her family, American settlers, was quite wealthy, which made it possible to give the children excellent home education. Agatha Christie could become a good musician, but, unfortunately, she was very afraid of the stage.

During the First World War, the writer worked as a nurse and, it is worth noting, this was about her
I really liked it. She also had the opportunity to work as a pharmacist, thanks to which she skillfully “killed” heroes by poisoning in her detective stories.

In 1914, Agatha Miller married Archibald Christie for the first time.

In 1920, the first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. There is information that the book was written because of a dispute with my sister. Agatha wanted to show that she could write an entire book, which, moreover, would become popular among readers. It was not published by the first publishing house that the writer contacted. The author received a very small fee, but the book immediately became very popular.

In Agatha's life Christie has had a very mysterious incident: her sudden disappearance. This happened in 1926. Her husband said that he loves someone else. Christie allegedly traveled to Yorkshire but disappeared for 11 days. She was found in a small hotel. She was listed there under the name of her husband’s mistress. She was diagnosed with amnesia due to a head injury. There is another version: as if she wanted to take revenge on her husband in this way, who would be suspected of the murder and disappearance of his wife. Christie herself did not comment on her disappearance. She spent her time very pleasantly: reading books, playing the piano and visiting the spa. This does not fit in with amnesia, which is why the version of a deliberate escape appeared. In 1928 the couple divorced.

Already in 1930, Agatha Christie meets a man who will be with her until the end of her days. This happened during a trip to Iraq, and her lover was the archaeologist Max Mallowan, who was much younger.

In 1965 she wrote her autobiography. The most memorable last phrase, which revealed the whole essence of Agatha Christie’s life, was: “Thank you, Lord, for my good life and for all the love that was given to me.”

From 1971 to 1974, Agatha Christie began to feel unwell, and her health rapidly began to deteriorate. Experts analyzed her works, which she wrote at that time, and a version emerged that she began to develop Alzheimer's disease. In 1975 she became completely weak. Agatha Christie died in 1976.

Documentary

We bring to your attention a documentary film, a biography of Agatha Christie.


Bibliography of Agatha Christie

Detective novels and short story collections

1920
The Mysterious Incident in Stiles
1922
Mysterious enemy
1923
Murder on the Golf Course
1924
Man in a brown suit
1924
Poirot is investigating
1925
The Mystery of Chimneys Castle
1926
Murder of Roger Ackroyd
1927
Big Four
1928
The Mystery of the Blue Train
1929
Partners in crime
1929
The Mystery of the Seven Dials
1930
Murder at the Vicarage
1930
Mysterious Mr. Keene
1931
Sittaford's Riddle
1932
Endhouse Mystery
1933
Death Hound
1933
Death of Lord Edgware
1933
Thirteen Mysterious Cases
1934
Murder on the Orient Express
1934
Parker Pine investigates
1934
Listerdale Mystery
Lord Listerdale's Mystery
1935
Tragedy in three acts
1935
Why not Evans?
1935
Death in the clouds
1936
Murders by alphabet
1936
Murder in Mesopotamia
1936
Cards on the table
1937
Silent Witness
1937
Death on the Nile
1937
Murder in the backyard
1938
Date with Death
1939
Ten Little Indians
1939
Easy to kill
1939
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
1939
The Secret of the Regatta and Other Stories
1940
sad cypress
1941
Evil under the sun
1941
N or M?
1941
One, two - fasten the buckle
Once, once - the guest is sitting with us
1942
Corpse in the library
1942
Five little pigs
1942
One finger
Holidays in Limstock
Moving finger
Finger of fate
1944
Zero hour
Towards zero
1944
Sparkling cyanide
1945
Death comes at the end
1946
Hollow
1947
Labors of Hercules
1948
Coast of luck
1948
Witness for the prosecution
1949
crooked little house
1950
Murder declared
1950
Three blind mice
1951
Baghdad meetings
Baghdad meeting
Meeting in Baghdad
1951
Quiet "Hounded Dog"
1952
Mrs McGinty died
1952
Using mirrors
1953
Pocket full of rye
Grains in your pocket
1953
After the funeral
1955
Hickory Dickory Dock
1955
Destination unknown
1956
Dead Man's Folly
1957
4.50 from Paddington
1957
Test of Innocence
1959
Cat among pigeons
1960
The Adventure of Christmas Pudding
1961
Villa "White Horse"
1961
Double sin
1962
And, cracking, the mirror rings...
1963
Watch
1964
Caribbean mystery
1965
Hotel Bertram
1966
Third girl
1967
Endless night
Night darkness
1968
Click your finger just once
Your fingers itch, why?
1969
Halloween Party
1970
Passenger from Frankfurt
1971
Nemesis
1971
The Golden Ball and other stories
1972
Elephants can remember
1973
Gate of Fate
1974
Poirot's early cases
1975
A curtain
1976
Sleeping Murder
1979
Miss Marple's Last Cases
1991
Trouble in Pollensa and other stories
1997
Tea set "Harlequin"
1997
As long as the light lasts and other stories

Plays

1928
Alibi
1930
Black coffee
1931
Chimneys
1936
Love from a stranger
1937
A daughter is a daughter
1940
Endhouse Mystery
1943
And there was no one
1945
Date with Death
1946
Death on the Nile
1949
Murder at the Vicarage
1951
Hollow
1952
Mousetrap
1953
Witness for the prosecution
1954
Web
1956
Towards zero
1958
Verdict
1958
Unexpected guest
1960
Back to the kill
1962
Rule of three
1972
Three violinists
1973
Akhenaten
1977
Murder declared
1981
Cards on the table
1993
Killing is easy

Works written under the name Mary Westmacott

1930
Giant's bread
1934
Unfinished portrait
1944
Missing in the spring
1948
Rose and yew
1952
A daughter is a daughter
1956
Burden
Burden of Love

Co-authored works

1931
The Admiral's Last Voyage
1998
Black coffee
2001
Unexpected guest
2003
Web

English Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, born Miller(English) Miller), better known by her first husband's surname as Agatha Christie

English writer; is one of the world's most famous authors of detective fiction

Agatha Christie

short biography

The full name of the writer, who is called the queen of detective stories, is Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan, née Miller, but she is known throughout the world as Agatha Christie, after the surname of her first husband. He is one of the most popular detective authors. Her works rank third in number of publications after the Bible and William Shakespeare, and have been translated into more than a hundred languages. During her lifetime alone, her books were published in more than 120 million copies.

Agatha Christie born on September 15, 1890 in Torquay (Devon County) in a family of wealthy American immigrants. The Miller couple provided their children with a quality home education. If young Agatha had not been afraid of the stage, she could have become a musician.

During the First World War, Agatha Miller worked as a nurse and did it with pleasure. She also had work as a pharmaceutical pharmacist, which later helped her repeatedly “kill” her literary characters through poisoning.

In 1914, Agatha Miller became Agatha Christie, marrying officer Archibald Christie. In 1920, her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. There is a version according to which she was forced to enter the path of writing detective stories by a bet with her older sister: Agatha wanted to prove that she could write a book that would be seen by the general public. The manuscript of an unknown writer was accepted only by the seventh publishing house, paying a very modest fee. The beginning of his creative career was very successful; the novel immediately made its author famous.

A striking and mysterious episode in the biography of A. Christie was her disappearance, which took place in December 1926. Her husband told her about his love for another woman, asked for a divorce, and after a quarrel with him about the whereabouts of the writer, who allegedly went to Yorkshire for 11 days nothing was known. The event caused considerable resonance. Then Christie was found in a modest spa hotel registered under the name of her husband’s mistress: she was diagnosed with amnesia, the cause of which was a head injury. The second version of the disappearance is connected with the desire to annoy the husband, to bring upon him the inevitable suspicion of murdering his wife.

In 1928, Agatha and Archibald divorced, but already in 1930, during a trip to Iraq, fate brought the famous writer together with the man with whom she lived until the end of her days. Her companion was the outstanding archaeologist Max Mallowan.

In 1956, A. Christie became a Knight of the Order of the British Empire, II degree. In 1965, the writer completed work on her autobiography, the last phrase of which was “Thank you, Lord, for my good life and for all the love that was given to me.” For services in the field of literary activity in 1971, Agatha Christie was awarded the title of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

During 1971-1974. Her health deteriorated more and more, but the writer did not stop working. There is an assumption (suggested by scientists from the University of Toronto based on a study of her writing style) that Christie had Alzheimer's disease. On January 12, 1976, she died at her home in Wallingford. She was buried in the village of Cholsi.

In the literary detective genre, which was popular before her, Agatha Christie became the creator of a new direction, placing emphasis on intelligence and brilliant intuition. These qualities are fully present in the characterization of her famous detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, to whom she devoted entire series. Christie's creative legacy includes more than seven dozen novels, 19 collections of short stories, and more than thirty plays, the most famous of which are The Mousetrap (1954) and The Witness for the Prosecution (1954). The first is included in the Guinness Book of Records as the work that has withstood the maximum number of theatrical productions. Many films have been made based on the works of the “Queen of Detectives”.

Biography from Wikipedia

Childhood and first marriage

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 liked this profession and spoke of 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 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 - Great Britain..

Disappearance

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 turned out, Agatha Christie registered under the name Teresa Neal 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. 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 beloved, she spent time playing the piano, spa treatments, and visiting the library. However, after examining all the evidence, Norman came to the conclusion that there was a dissociative fugue caused by a severe mental disorder.

Despite mutual affection at the beginning, Archibald and Agatha Christie's marriage ended in divorce in 1928.
In her novel The Unfinished Portrait, published in 1934 under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie describes events similar to her own disappearance.

Second marriage and later years

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 Ten Little Indians) 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. Room 411 of the hotel where Agatha Christie lived is now her memorial museum. Estate The Greenway Estate in Devon, which the couple bought in 1938, is protected by the 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: 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, Agatha Christie was awarded the title of Lady Commander(English Dame Commander) of the Order of the British Empire, the holders of which also acquire the noble title “dame”, used before the 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 has been 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 of Agatha Christie's literary works, and his name is still associated with the foundation. Agatha Christie Limited».

Creation

One Indian correspondent who interviewed me (and, admittedly, asked a lot of stupid questions) asked: “Have you ever published a book that you consider to be frankly bad?” I answered indignantly: “No!” No book came out exactly as intended, was my answer, and I was never satisfied, but if my book had turned out to be really bad, I would never have published it.

Agatha Christie "Autobiography"

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. No one could have imagined 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 ... "- this is what 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 largest sales in stores, but to comply with political correctness it is now sold under the title And Then There Were None- “And there was no one.”

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.

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple

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 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 characters of the writers M. Z. Braddon and Anna Catherine Green.

Miss Marple appeared in the 1927 short story " Evening club "Tuesday"“” (English: 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 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 not published until the 1970s.

Other Agatha Christie detectives

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 novel " Man in a brown suit", a spy detective story 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 last 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) - the hero of 12 stories included in the collection " Parker Pine investigates", and also 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 pleasure. In 1929, Tuppence and Tomie appear in the collection of short stories "Partners in Crime", in 1941 in " N or M?", in 1968 in " Click your finger just once", and for the last time in the novel " Gate of Fate 1973, 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.

Superintendent Battle(English: Superintendent Battle) - detective, hero of five novels. 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.

Inspector Narracott is a detective, the hero of the novel “The Riddle of Sittaford”.

Main literary heroes

  • Miss Marple
  • Hercule Poirot
  • Captain Hastings
  • Miss Lemon (Poirot's secretary)
  • Chief Inspector Japp
  • Ariadne Oliver
  • Superintendent Battle
  • Colonel Reis
  • Tommy and Tuppence Beresford

Also other detectives who appeared in just one collection of detective stories:

  • Parker Pine
  • Harley Keane
  • Mr Satterthwaite

About Agatha Christie

  • Hack R. Duchess of Death. Biography of Agatha Christie / Trans. from English M. Makarova. - M.: KoLibri, Azbuka-Atticus, 2011. - 480 pp., 5000 copies.
  • Tsimbaeva E. N. Agatha Christie. - M.: Young Guard, 2013. - 346, p., l. ill. - (Life of remarkable people. Small series; Issue 44). - 5000 copies.

Memory

  • In 1985, the Christie crater on Venus was named in her honor.
  • On November 25, 2012, to mark the 60th anniversary of the play “The Mousetrap,” a monument to Agatha Christie is planned to be opened in the theater district of London, in the very center of Covent Garden (sculptor Ben Twiston-Davies)
  • In 1985, the Russian rock group Agatha Christie was named in her honor.

Computer games

Based on Agatha Christie's books, a trilogy of computer games in the quest genre, as well as casual games, was released.

Agatha Christie is a famous English writer, prose writer, author of plays and popular detective novels. She is the author of stories about such iconic detectives as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, who can rival the fame of the unforgettable Sherlock Holmes (author - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

A biography and essay on Agatha Christie's work will undoubtedly prove quite useful and interesting for our readers.

short biography

Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallone (Miller before her second marriage), who later became famous as the writer Agatha Christie, was born in a small English town. The girl's parents were fairly wealthy emigrants from the United States of America. Three children grew up in the family: Agatha, as well as her brother Louis and sister Margaret.

Agatha Christie's biography is devoid of events, at least in the early years of the writer's life. Agatha's father died early, and the family lived poorly. The girl studied poorly and changed several educational institutions, while she was interested in music.

Christy could have become a musician and performed on stage, but, unfortunately, her innate shyness put an end to her youthful dreams. However, this is for the best - who knows, if the girl became a famous pianist, she would be able to write good detective stories?

When World War I began at the beginning of the twentieth century, Agatha went to work in a hospital for wounded soldiers as a nurse. This gave her invaluable life experience. It is known, by the way, that a young, still unknown nurse began writing her first novel while working in a hospital.

When the war ended, the future famous writer studied to become a pharmacist. Thanks to this, she, having become the author of detective works, was able to describe poisoning using various toxic substances quite reliably.

The very first detective novel by this author, who changed his cumbersome name to a euphonious pseudonym, was written in 1915. True, the public was able to get acquainted with this work only in 1920, since until that moment all publishing houses rejected it.

The famous English writer was married twice, and if the prose writer divorced one man (his name was Archibald) with a scandal, she lived in a happy marriage for 45 years with the second - archaeologist Maxis Mallone.

There is also an autobiographical work: “Agatha Christie. Autobiography".

It will be useful for the reader to learn some instructive and funny facts about the famous writer:

  • Agatha Christie was honored to be awarded the Order of the British Empire, received the title of noblewoman - “lady”, and her biography invariably sells in huge numbers.
  • Christie signed some of her works with the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.
  • According to some researchers, the writer suffered from incurable diseases: some call Alzheimer's disease, and others call dysgraphia.
  • Agatha Christie happened to disappear, frightening the entire world community: when her husband asked for a divorce, the author of detective stories disappeared for eleven whole days and was even put on the national wanted list.
  • In the books of the English writer, exactly 83 murders were committed with the help of highly toxic poisons.
  • Agatha Christie's autobiographical story ends with the following phrase: “Thank you, Lord, for my wonderful life and for all the love that was given to me.”

The great writer died in the seventies of the twentieth century, when she was 85 years old. The cause of death was a severe cold. Her body was buried in the village of Cholsi, in a small rural cemetery. For more than forty years now, the grave of the great writer has become an object of pilgrimage for her many fans.

During her lifetime, Agatha Christie received the proud title of “Queen of Detectives” from the British and American press.

Contribution to literature

This writer penned many literary works. There are two major series of her novels about great detectives: the adventures of Hercule Poirot, a funny Belgian eccentric detective; as well as a series of stories about Miss Marple, a sweet and respectable old lady, whose prototype is called Agatha Christie herself, as well as her elderly grandmother, who has not lost her sharp mind.

Such different heroes of Agatha Christa - detectives, spies, priests, criminals and politicians - are united by an extraordinary mind, insight, desire for justice, and also, which may even seem funny, complete inattention to the opposite sex. Christie's heroes are passionate about their life's work, devoted to duty and ideals, have strong and unbreakable principles, but are not at all ambitious.

It is also necessary to mention that Agatha Christie's literary works have been filmed several times. Even the most famous film adaptations cannot fit on one page. Here are some of them:

  • "Murder on the Orient Express".
  • "Agatha Christie's Poirot."
  • "Ten Little Indians."
  • "The Big Alibi"
  • "Miss Marple".
  • "Mousetrap".

And this is not a complete list of film adaptations of her novels.

The series about Hercule Poirot was even adapted into a TV series, which is now quite popular and includes several well-developed seasons. But Miss Marple was not left without her own series: a feature film was made, consisting of many parts, in which the main roles were played by wonderful English and American theater and film actors.

In addition to detective stories, Agatha Christie also worked on several film scripts and plays for theaters, and occasionally wrote poetry and stories for children.

Under another pseudonym, the English writer also published psychological novels - thrillers, as they would be called today. These psychological novels, like, in principle, her detective prose, were distinguished by a twisted, extraordinary plot and eventful action that kept the reader in suspense until the very last page.

In general, the work of the famous Englishwoman was truly heterogeneous, rich in new plot solutions, techniques and intrigues that had not previously been used by other writers.

Agatha Christie can be called a truly great writer. Her works occupy third place in the list of most published books, second only to the Bible and William Shakespeare. The writer created more than sixty novels, wrote creepy thrillers under another pseudonym, and was also the author of several plays that immediately appeared in the repertoires of the most famous London theaters. Her best books have been filmed.

So, there is no doubt that Agatha Christie made a truly invaluable contribution to English and, of course, world literature. Author: Irina Shumilova

Spy novel, autobiography

Language of works English Debut The Mysterious Incident at Stiles Awards Autograph agathachristie.com Works on the website Lib.ru © This author's works are not free Media files on Wikimedia Commons Quotes on Wikiquote

Lady Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan(English) Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan), born Miller(eng. Miller), better known by the name of her first husband as Agatha Christie(September 15, Torquay, UK - January 12, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK) - English writer.

She is one of the world's most famous authors of detective prose; her works have become some of the most published in the history of mankind (second only to the Bible and the works of Shakespeare).

Christie published more than 60 detective novels, 6 psychological novels (under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott or Westmacott), and 19 collections of short stories. 16 of her plays were staged in London.

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 staged 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 went to the play several times a year.

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Biography

Childhood and first marriage

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 liked this profession and spoke of 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 marked the beginning of Agatha Christie's creative career. Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920. 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.

Disappearance

Between 1971 and 1974, Christie's health began to deteriorate, but despite this, she continued to write. Experts at 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 autobiography of Agatha Christie, which the writer graduated in 1965, ends with the words: “ Thank you, Lord, for my good life and for all the love that has been given to me.».

Christie's only daughter, Rosalind Margaret Hicks (eng. Rosalind Margaret Hicks) also lived to be 85 years old and died on October 28, 2004 in Devon. Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, inherited the rights to some of Agatha Christie's literary works, and his name is still associated with the foundation. Agatha Christie Limited».

Creation

One Indian correspondent who interviewed me (and, admittedly, asked a lot of stupid questions) asked: “Have you ever published a book that you consider to be frankly bad?” I answered indignantly: “No!” No book came out exactly as intended, was my answer, and I was never satisfied, but if my book turned out really bad, I would never have published it. Agatha Christie "Autobiography"

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. No one could have imagined 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 ... "- this is what 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 largest sales in stores, but to comply with political correctness it is now sold under the title And Then There Were None- “And there was no one.”

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.

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple

Inspector Narracott is a detective, the hero of the novel “The Riddle of Sittaford”.

List of works

  • - Agatha Christie: The Alphabet Murders (not published in Russia)

Agatha Christie in films

In the fourth season of the British television series Doctor Who, the Doctor and his companion Donna meet Agatha on the day of her disappearance. The series tells about the events that happened to Agatha these days. The Doctor and Donna also give her ideas about creating Miss Marple and the book Death in the Clouds.

In the second season of the Spanish television series Grand Hotel, one of the main characters, Alicia Alarcon, meets a young girl, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, who is interested in writing detective stories.

see also

  • The Agatha Christie Hour

Notes

  1. ID BNF: Open Data Platform - 2011.
  2. Encyclopædia Britannica
  3. SNAC - 2010.
  4. Edited Guide Entry(English) . BBC Home (9 August 2001). Retrieved April 8, 2010. Archived August 25, 2011.
  5. Author Spotlight: Agatha Christie(English) (undefined). BookClubs. Retrieved April 8, 2010. Archived August 25, 2011.
  6. Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (Miller) (undefined) . People (September 26, 2007). Retrieved April 8, 2010. Archived August 25, 2011.
  7. Newspaper “Book Review” 2012, No. 17
  8. Report from the ITN television company about the anniversary of “Mousetraps” in 1962 (video)(English) (undefined). ITN. Retrieved April 8, 2010.

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.

In 1920, Agatha Christie's first detective novel, The Mysterious Crime at Styles, was published, the main character of which, the Belgian private detective 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