Agatha Christie Dame of Crime

Many writers find that their fictional characters become far better known than the writer themselves, Agatha Christie though is perhaps one author who is as identifiable as her characters.

Whilst it is true that her characters, including Poirot and Miss Marple, are world famous, they are normally identified as Christie’s Poirot and Christie’s Marple. As a result Dame Agatha Christie was for many decades known as the Queen of Crime, and has been credited by the Guinness Book of Records as the best selling fiction writer of all time.

Agatha Christie’s writing career was both long lived, writing for over fifty years, and prolific, writing over eighty novels and short stories, as well as a number of West End plays. All this writing has pushed estimates of books sold to over two billion, half of which have been published in languages other than English.

A Young Agatha Christie - PD-Pre1978 Publicity Photo

Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller on the 15th September 1890 in Torquay, Devon, to an American father and English mother, Agatha also had an older sister, Margaret, and a younger brother, Louis. Agatha’s father though died when she was just eleven, and as a result she was brought up solely by her mother.

Her mother also took the role of teacher, giving Agatha a home education, an education that did encourage Agatha to be creative and write from a young age. As a result Agatha’s only formal education came in the form a finishing school in Paris when she was 16. In the age when Agatha was young though girls were not expected to be highly educated, and the ideal role was stylised as that of dutiful wife.

It was a role that in 1914 Agatha found herself in, with a marriage to Colonel Archibald Christie. Whilst her husband was flying with the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, Agatha worked in a hospital and pharmacy, her knowledge gained of poisons would be of great benefit in her future literary career. Despite the birth of a daughter, Rosalind, the marriage was far from happy, and with evidence of infidelity Agatha disappeared in December 1926. Since condemned as a publicity stunt, extensive press coverage lead to a hunt across Berkshire and Surrey. Her husband’s infidelity though was reported and in 1928 the couple were divorced.

Whilst obviously an unhappy period in Agatha’s life, 1920 did see the start of her writing career, with the publication of her first novel, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”. This novel saw the introduction of one her most famous characters, Hercule Poirot, a character that featured in thirty-three novels and a further fifty-four short stories.

Two years after her divorce, Agatha, at forty, remarried. At fourteen years her junior, Sir Max Mallowan, an archaeologist of some renown, made her happy. Agatha though seemed to have some attraction to men who were not faithful, as throughout a marriage lasting forty-seven years, Mallowan was said to have had numerous affairs. Agatha travelled with her husband as the archaeological work dictated. Her life experiences again allowed her to set her novels in a detailed background, and just as her early life in Devon had contributed, so did her travels to the Middle East. 1930 was also the year that Miss Marple was introduced to her readers, with the publication of “The Murder at the Vicarage”. Much of her life was spent travelling, as well as staying at Abney Hall in Cheshire, this venue allowed her to give detail to many of the country houses that appeared in her stories.

As her popularity increased throughout the 1940′s and 50′s, Agatha found her work in demand not just from her reading public but also film studios and theatres. Her play “The Mousetrap” has the record for the longest running play ever, commencing as it did in the winter of 1952. Film dramatisations also followed, with “Death on the Nile” and “Murder on the Orient Express” being the most famous.

Agatha Christie - Flanker - CC-BY-SA-2.0

Agatha remained a prodigious writer writing right through to her seventies and early eighties, though numbers of published work did reduce in latter years. Agatha attempted to get around her decline, and published her last two books “Curtain” and “Sleeping Murder” even though they had been placed in a bank vault for thirty years to be published only after her death. Agatha Christie passed away, on the 12th January 1976 at the age of 85, and was survived by her second husband.

For the amount of books written and sold, Agatha has been sparsely recognised, though it must be said that the awards she did receive were of the highest merit. Firstly receiving Grand Master Award in 1955 from the Mystery Writers of America, and then in the 1970′s she was made a Dame under the Order of Dame Commander of the British Empire, one of the highest civilian awards in the UK. Even since her death her works continue to be sold, and she remains one of the most popular sellers of English crime fiction in the present day. Television adaptations are still made and in recent years a new series of Miss Marple was produced. Also it must be noted that Agatha was more than just a crime fiction writer, as alongside her plays she wrote a number of non-fiction books relating to Max Mallowan’s work, and also a further six romantic novels.

Despite the lack of literary rewards the general public will never forget her or her characters. Poirot will always be the Belgian detective who made use of his ‘little grey cells’, Miss Marple is visualised as everyone’s favourite aunt with a story to relate to any situation.
 
Whilst not rated as a great writer in comparison with the likes of Shakespeare or Dickens, Agatha Christie should be rated as one of the best writers England has produced due to her enduring popularity if for nothing else.

Copyright - First Published 12th February 2008

Keywords - Dame Agatha Christie, Christie Miss Marple, Christie Poirot, Creator of Poirot