Brief biography of Agatha Christie. Brief biography of Agatha Christie The first novel of Agatha Christie

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.

Agatha Christie's first detective novel, The Mysterious Crime at Styles, was published in 1920. main character whose private detective, Belgian 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. Great success 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 history of the theater, are used.

The last one took place in 1974 public speaking writers 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

Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, née Miller, better known by her first husband's surname as Agatha Christie. Born September 15, 1890 - died January 12, 1976. English writer.

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 performed 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 goes to the play several times a year.

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 loved the profession and described 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 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 turns out, Agatha Christie registered under the name Teresa Neil at the small spa hotel Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now Old Swan Hotel). Christie offered 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 mistress, she spent time playing the piano, spa treatments, and visiting the library. However, after studying all the evidence, Norman came to the conclusion that there was a dissociative fugue caused by a severe mental disorder.

According to another version, the disappearance was deliberately planned by her in order to take revenge on her husband, whom the police would inevitably suspect of the murder of the writer.

Despite mutual affection at the beginning, Archibald and Agatha Christie's marriage ended in divorce in 1928.

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 And Then There Were None) were set in or around Torquay, the place where Christie was born. 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.

Christie often stayed at the mansion Abney Hall in Cheshire, which belonged to her brother-in-law James Watts. 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, for her achievements in the field of literature, Agatha Christie was awarded the title of 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 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 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 was 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 Agatha Christie Limited foundation.

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 up a new idea. storyline, by the time she sat down to write the novel, the plot was ready from beginning to end. 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 English justice of that time.

The writer 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. It could not have occurred to anyone 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...” - she wrote in her autobiography. In her opinion, such scenes dull the feeling of compassion and do not allow the reader to focus on main topic 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 biggest sales in stores, but to comply with political correctness it is now sold under the title “And Then There Were None.”

In her work, Agatha Christie demonstrates conservatism quite typical of the English mentality. political views. 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.

The most famous characters from Agatha Christie's novels:

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 published a whole series of works featuring a Belgian detective. Hercule Poirot: 33 novels, 1 play and 54 short 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 “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 30s, but unlike Conan Doyle, she did not dare 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 published only in the 70s.

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 Man in the Brown Suit, a spy mystery 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) is the hero of 12 stories included in the collection “Parker Pyne Investigates”, as well as 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 who first appear 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 pleasures. In 1929, Tuppence and Tomie appeared in the short story collection Partners in Crime, in 1941 in N or M?, in 1968 in Snap Your Finger Just Once, and most recently in the 1973 novel The Gates of Doom. , 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 real world and with each subsequent novel. So, by the last novel where they appear, they are nearly seventy.

Superintendent Battle(eng. Superintendent Battle) is a fictional detective, the hero of five novels by Agatha Christie. Battle is entrusted with sensitive matters 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.

Novels (detectives) by Agatha Christie:

1920 The Mysterious Affair at Styles
1922 Secret Adversary
1923 Murder on the Golf Course Murder on the Links
1924 Man in the Brown Suit

1924 Poirot investigates Poirot Investigates (11 stories):

The Mystery of the Star of the West
Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
The mystery of a cheap apartment
Murder at Hunter's Lodge
Million dollar theft
Pharaoh's Revenge
Trouble at the Grand Metropolitan Hotel
Kidnapping of the Prime Minister
The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
The mystery of the death of the Italian count
Missing will

1925 Secret of Chimneys Castle
1926 Murder of Roger Ackroyd
1927 Big Four Big Four
1928 Mystery of the Blue Train
1929 Partners in Crime
1929 Seven Dials Mystery
1930 Murder at the Vicarage
1930 The Mysterious Mr. Keene The Mysterious Mr. Quin
1931 Sittaford Mystery, the
1932 The Endhouse Mystery Peril at End House

1933 The Hound of Death (12 stories):

Death Hound
Red signal
Fourth man
Gypsy
Lamp
I'll come for you, Mary!
Witness for the prosecution
The Mystery of the Blue Jug
The Amazing Incident of Sir Arthur Carmichael
Call of the Wings
The last seance
SOS

1933 Death of Lord Edgware Lord Edgware Dies
1933 The Thirteen Problems
1934 Murder on the Orient Express Murder on the Orient
1934 Parker Pyne Investigates

1934 The Listerdale Mystery (12 stories):

Listerdale Mystery
Philomela Cottage
Girl on the train
A song for six pence
The Metamorphosis of Edward Robinson
Accident
Jane is looking for a job
Fruitful Sunday
The Adventure of Mr. Eastwood
Red ball
Rajah's emerald
Swan song

1935 Tragedy in three acts Three Act Tragedy
1935 Why not Evans? Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
1935 Death in the Clouds
1936 The Alphabet Murders The A.B.C. Murders
1936 Murder in Mesopotamia
1936 Cards on the Table
1937 Silent Witness Dumb Witness
1937 Death on the Nile
1937 Murder in the Mews (4 stories):

Murder in the backyard
Incredible theft
Dead Man's Mirror
Triangle in Rhodes

1938 Appointment with Death
1939 Десять негритят Ten Little Niggers
1939 Murder is Easy
1939 Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
1939 The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
1940 Sad Cypress
1941 Evil Under the Sun
1941 N or M? N or M?
1941 One, two - fasten the buckle One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
1942 The Body in the Library
1942 Five Little Pigs
1942 With one finger, Vacation in Limstock, Moving Finger, Finger of Destiny
1944 Zero Hour
1944 Towards Zero Towards Zero
1944 Sparkling Cyanide
1945 Death Comes as the End
1946 The Hollow
1947 Labors of Hercules The Labors of Hercules
1948 Coast of Fortune Taken at the Flood
1948 Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
1949 Crooked House
1950 A Murder is Announced
1950 Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
1951 Baghdad meetings They Came to Baghdad
1951 Quiet “The Hunted Dog” The Under Dog and Other Stories
1952 Mrs McGinty died Mrs McGinty's Dead
1952 They Do It with Mirrors
1953 A Pocket Full of Rye
1953 After the Funeral
1955 Hickory Dickory Dock / Hickory Dickory Death
1955 Destination Unknown
1956 Dead Man's Folly
1957 At 4.50 from Paddington 4.50 from Paddington
1957 Ordeal by Innocence
1959 Cat Among the Pigeons

1960 The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (6 stories):

The Adventure of Christmas Pudding
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
Quiet
Black currant
Dream
Lost Key

1961 Villa “White Horse” The Pale Horse
1961 Double Sin and Other Stories
1962 And, cracking, the mirror rings... The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
1963 The Clocks
1964 Caribbean Mystery
1965 At Bertram's Hotel
1966 Third Girl Third Girl
1967 Endless Night
1968 Snap Your Finger Just Once By the Pricking of My Thumbs
1969 Halloween Party
1970 Passenger to Frankfurt
1971 Nemesis Nemesis
1971 The Golden Ball and Other Stories
1972 Elephants Can Remember
1973 Gates of Fate Poster of Fate

1974 Poirot’s Early Cases (18 stories):

Case at the Victory Ball
The Disappearance of the Clapham Cook
Cornish mystery
The Adventure of Johnny Waverly
Double evidence
King of Clubs
Lemesurier's legacy
Lost Mine
Plymouth Express
Box of chocolates
Submarine drawings
Apartment on the fourth floor
Double sin
The Mystery of Market Basing
Wasp's nest
Lady under the veil
Marine investigation
How wonderful everything is in your little garden...

1975 Curtain Curtain
1976 Sleeping Murder

1979 Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories (Collection of Stories):

holy place
Unusual joke
Measure of death
The Caretaker's Case
The case of the best of the maids
Miss Marple talks
Doll in the fitting room
In the twilight of the mirror

1991 Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories (Collection of stories):

Service "Harlequin"
Second stroke of the gong
It's about love
Yellow irises
magnolia flower
Case in Pollensa
Together with the dog
Mysterious incident during the regatta

1997 The Harlequin Tea Set

1997 While the Light Lasts and Other Stories (Collection of stories):

The house of his dreams
Actress
On the edge
Adventure at Christmas
Lonely God
Manx Gold
Behind the walls
The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest
As long as the light lasts...

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

Brief 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 a bet with her older sister forced her to pursue the path of writing detective stories: 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 genre of literary detective fiction, 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

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.

Disappearance

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 An Unfinished Portrait, published in 1934 under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie describes events similar to her own disappearance.

Second marriage and later years

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.

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.».

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 working on 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.

The writer 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.

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"“” (eng. 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.”

Other Agatha Christie detectives

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.

Over the 86 years of her life, Agatha Christie wrote almost 70 novels. That's a lot. If you read so many detective stories in a row, you will probably want to kill someone yourself.

Fortunately, literature experts believe that only 10 works by the British writer are true masterpieces. Ten is not so much anymore. After ten detectives it is quite possible to be satisfied with blackmail, robbery or, in extreme cases, torture.

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" (1926)

Hercule Poirot investigates

You'll never guess who the killer is. Is it true. The book was published in 1926 and caused a real shock. Until now, not a single author of detective novels has thought of making him a murderer... That's it, that's it, keep quiet.

"Murder at the Vicarage" (1930)

Miss Marple Investigates

Another innovation: for the first time, a decrepit old maid appeared on stage as a detective, with whom the audience immediately fell passionately in love. Now the old lady will have to stay on this stage for almost half a century: in the last novels with her participation, the writer hints that Miss Marple has already exceeded a hundred years.

"Murder on the Orient Express" (1934)

Hercule Poirot investigates

The detective story was filmed about a million times - in all countries that managed to invent film. Again, you probably won’t be able to guess the killer. The book also immortalized the train that ran from Istanbul to Paris, a luxurious luxury express train. Velvet curtains, silver cup holders, corpses in the compartment - everything is as it should be.

"The Mystery of Endhouse" (1932)

Hercule Poirot investigates

In addition to the twisted plot, there is an excellent description of the golden youth of the Great Depression, from which it follows that our great-grandmothers had sex with anyone and drove cars. It’s strange that they had such decent and well-intentioned great-grandchildren.

"Death on the Nile" (1937)

Hercule Poirot investigates

The detective story is written so captivatingly that you are tempted to give up everything, take a ticket on a cruise on the Nile and be gracefully killed there. There are also a great many film adaptations - what director wouldn’t want to make a film on a magnificent steamship, where everyone is wearing pearls and tuxedos?

"Ten Little Indians" (1939)

Investigated by Thomas Legge and Inspector Mayne

“Ten little Indians decided to have lunch - one choked, and there were nine of them left.” The most difficult and tragic of the writer's detective stories. The perfect thriller: the whole truth about the darkness of criminal souls. We have filmed it by Govorukhin - with the brilliant Tatyana Drubich in leading role. And yes, for reasons of political correctness in the West, the novel is now published under the title “And Then There Were None.”

"Death Comes at the End" (1944)

No one is investigating

An archaeologist husband is a great resource for any mystery writer. The novel takes place in Ancient Egypt, four thousand years ago. A detailed and quite historically accurate observation of the life of an ancient Egyptian family in which a secret killer operates. With this book, Lady Agatha proved that she knows how to make readers fall in love not only with British life. Her Egyptian is also very seductive.

"Evil Under the Sun" (1941)

Hercule Poirot investigates

Beach, palm trees, sun, a brilliant hotel on the island - and the famous sociopathic actress in the role of the main animator, who diligently pesters all the guests in turn and in the end finds herself the victim of a brutal murder. An amazing detective story, reading which you sincerely and fervently wish that the killer of this charming lady was never found.

"The Crooked Little House" (1949)

Investigated by Charles Hayward

A purely family affair: at the funeral of a rich old Greek, his large, worthless family squabbles over an inheritance. And then strange deaths begin. It is impossible to describe what is happening in more detail, it would be a complete spoiler, but again, the killer is very difficult to guess even for an experienced reader.

"4.50 from Paddington" (1957)

Miss Marple Investigates

Another favorite book of film adaptations. An old woman on a train catches a glimpse of a man strangling a woman in a compartment of another train. However, maybe the old lady was just imagining this horror? And even if not, where to look for the killer and the victim, who are they? (Electronic personalized tickets will not be invented until half a century later.) But these trifles will not stop Miss Marple!

She has as many names as possible options the outcome of detective novels written by her. In addition to the traditional name Agatha (which, by the way, is only the second, not the first), her parents gave her two more - Mary, and also Clarissa.

Moreover, Christie is not the maiden name of the writer who gave the world the greatest detective phrases in the form of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Agatha Miller has written more than 60 detective novels, as well as two dozen plays and numerous collections of short stories. Needless to say, how often these literary works have received all kinds of productions and film adaptations!

Childhood, girlhood and first marriage

The childhood city in which the famous writer was born is Torquay (Devon County), and the exact date of birth is September 15, 1890. Thanks to her wealthy parents (they were immigrants from the United States), Agatha received a thorough education at home.

Biographers unanimously emphasize the undoubted musical talents of the future star of the English detective genre. However, shyness stood between her and the fate of the performer, influencing her future biography. And then, when she turned 24, marriage entered her life, finally burying the opportunity to shine on stage.

Colonel Archibald Christie was the symbol of her love for several years; for the first time she saw Lieutenant Archibald in front of her, but only when he rose to the rank of colonel did their happiness together become a reality.

Agatha gave birth to her first husband, Rosalind, but this did not save the first marriage, which the future famous writer was awarded with fate. Her mother died in 1926, and two years later Archie insisted on a divorce. By that time he was already in love with another woman. It was a banal affair between two golf partners.

Agatha Christie was worried to the point of madness, which led her to memory loss. However, treatment at a boarding house helped her continue raising her beloved daughter. However, evil tongues claim that this was an attempt to take revenge on the dissolute ex-husband: the police found an empty car with collected things, and the ex-wife herself disappeared without a trace, and suspicion of a possible murder naturally fell on Archie. However, the matter never came to an arrest...

Start of career and second marriage

1920 was the year of her writing debut. Interestingly, before its publication, various British publishers rejected the opus of the future national literary star five times! Apparently, the beginning was inspiring, and the writer soon produced a whole series of novels with a Belgian detective as the main character.

Agatha invented the equally famous Miss Marple later. Subsequently, journalists repeatedly asked Christie the question of whether she herself was the prototype of her popular heroine? To which the writer invariably answered: they say, I don’t see any similarity between us!

According to her version, the attic of one of her grandmothers' house turned out to be the place where an old reticule was stored. All Agatha Christie did was free him from bread crumbs, two pennies and silk lace, and this served as the birth of the image of the famous detective.

In 1930, Agatha found a more serious candidate for a husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan. The young people met when Mrs. Christie was traveling in Iraq and came across excavations at Ur. Since then, the writer liked the Asian voyages so much that the couple annually visited Iraq and neighboring Syria.

The first one started world war, and Agatha devoted herself to working in the hospital, and subsequently in the pharmacy. So it’s not surprising her ability to understand poisons and professional knowledge in this area.

They say that when Agatha Christie met the future university professor in London, their love flared up like a dry camel thorn on a hot dune. And this despite the fact that Christie was already 40 at that time, and her chosen one turned out to be fifteen years younger.

They got married two months later and did not part for half a century! It was deep love and mutual respect that began with a honeymoon, which took place, among other things, across the territory of the USSR. This year was also the year of the birth of her deeply emancipated Miss Marple.

Subsequently, by the way, the writer said with a smile that she and her husband were both doing what they loved. And being the wife of an archaeologist, according to her, is wonderful because over the years a woman is of increasing interest to her chosen one.

Honor and respect, Hercule, Hastings and Marple

The dizzying career that followed gave the world numerous detective stories that later became classics. In 1958, the writer was awarded the right to head the Detective Club of Britain.

And in 1971 she was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the literary field. At the same time, Christie added a particle to her three names title of nobility"daim". Alas, five years later she passed away. A cold eventually brought her to the cemetery in Cholsey. This happened in her native Wallingford (Oxfordshire).

To be fair, it should be noted that Agatha Christie copied her first pair of heroes from an equally famous pair. But, nevertheless, the writer managed to make them so original that this borrowing was soon forgotten.

On the contrary, it later became the rule good manners to say that the intellectual Poirot and the somewhat comical, diligent and not very smart Hastings were worthy successors to the work of the English authors of the detective genre.

But the image of the old maid Marple, which Agatha later created, became the arithmetic mean of the heroines of her colleagues Braddon and Green. Christie led her Hercule from the very beginning of her (and his!) career (which began with The Mysterious Affair at Styles) through the twists and turns of 26 novels, until his “death”. This happened in 1975, when Christie’s career ended with “The Curtain...” or Poirot’s last case.

The mouthpiece of emancipation

However, her grandson Matthew Pritchard argued that the writer loved her detective more - a smart, old, traditional English lady. The secret is simple: Christie is an ardent advocate of emancipation. First of all, this was reflected in her usual field of activity.

Agatha Christie more than once put the postulates of emancipation into the mouths of her heroines. Anyone who is familiar with Christie's great literary legacy in great detail will confirm that the theme of her novels was never sexual crimes.

And scenes of violence, puddles of blood and a sea of rudeness are not inherent in her work. This makes her imperishable works noticeably different from modern opuses of the detective genre. Agatha believed that all this unnecessary surroundings does not allow the reader to fully sympathize and distracts from the main topic.

It’s interesting that, in Christie’s own opinion, the undoubted pinnacle of her work is the story about ten little blacks. Moreover, the fictional island where the sinister and mysterious murders took place has a very real “twin”. Agatha Christie "copied" the cliffs rising from the sea from Burgh, an island whose location is in the south of England.

It was this novel that was destined to become a record holder for the number of copies sold. Political correctness, however, has brought its own changes to Christie’s creative process: its title has now been changed to “And Then There Were None.”

Throughout the reading world, she is given the title “Queen of Crime,” but Agatha herself has said more than once that she prefers the title “Duchess of Death.” Looking at the photo of a pretty elderly woman, it’s hard to believe that it was in her sophisticated brain that hundreds of murders were born. It is curious, but true: in her literary delights she preferred poisons to firearms. In her opinion, they were excitingly attractive.

History has preserved the statement of her great admirer Winston Churchill, who once said that Christie made more money from the murders than any other woman, including the notorious Lucrezia Borgia.

Having a rich biography, Agatha left behind a legacy that has been distributed around the world in more than a hundred languages in more than two billion copies. Christie is an author whose books are the most widely read in the world.

And she always defined her social status as a housewife: one of the writer’s hobbies was real estate.