[87] At the time of her death in 1976, "she was the best-selling novelist in history. For other uses, see, The wooden counter in the foyer of St Martin's Theatre showing 22,461 performances of, Early literary attempts, marriage, literary success: 19071926, Second marriage and later life: 19271976. [132][179] More than two million copies of her books were sold in English in 2020. [124], Gillian Gill notes that the murder method in Christie's first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, "comes right out of Agatha Christie's work in the hospital dispensary". [46] The next day, Christie left for her sister's residence at Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered "in guarded hall, gates locked, telephone cut off, and callers turned away". [31]:15 Early in her career, a reporter noted that "her plots are possible, logical, and always new. [4]:7579[31]:1718 Her original manuscript was rejected by Hodder & Stoughton and Methuen. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End since 1952. When a little older, she moved on to the surreal verse of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. [147] She was named "Best Writer of the Century" and the Hercule Poirot series of books was named "Best Series of the Century" at the 2000 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. [14]:476,482[185]:57 In 2016, a new film version was released, directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also starred, wearing "the most extravagant mustache moviegoers have ever seen". Wilson's 1945 essay, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" She also helped put on a play called The Blue Beard of Unhappiness with female friends. Mathew Prichard is the only grandchild of Agatha Christie. [61] This was their main residence for the rest of their lives and the place where Christie did much of her writing. [123]:37 Stereotyped characters abound (the femme fatale, the stolid policeman, the devoted servant, the dull colonel), but these may be subverted to stymie the reader; impersonations and secret alliances are always possible. [4]:242,251,288, In the 1950s, "the theatre engaged much of Agatha's attention. "Wills and Probate from 1996 to present, Arthur A Hicks", "Where Agatha Christie Dreamed Up Murder", "1976: Crime writer Agatha Christie dies", "Solved: The mystery of forgotten Christie play", "David Suchet Reveals He Misses Playing Poirot", "Wo Agatha Christie ihre Sommer verbrachte und mordete", "The Big Question: How big is the Agatha Christie industry, and what explains her enduring appeal? Among her earliest memories were of reading children's books by Mrs Molesworth and Edith Nesbit. Want to Read. [4]:79,8182 It was published in 1920. [79][80] When her death was announced, two West End theatres the St. Martin's, where The Mousetrap was playing, and the Savoy, which was home to a revival of Murder at the Vicarage dimmed their outside lights in her honour. These concealed clues can be revealed using either a magnifying glass, UV light or body heat and provide pointers to the mysteries' solutions. [2] Many of Christie's books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games, and graphic novels. [132] The novel is emblematic of both her use of formula and her willingness to discard it. These hospital experiences were also likely responsible for the prominent role physicians, nurses, and pharmacists play in her stories. [115], Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. Three months after their first meeting, Archie proposed marriage, and Agatha accepted. His son James Prichard is the current CEO of Agatha Christie Limited. Christie led a quiet life despite being known in Wallingford; from 1951 to 1976 she served as president of the local amateur dramatic society. with Angela Prichard. [14]:68 After her marriage to Mallowan in 1930, she accompanied him on annual expeditions, spending three to four months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Nineveh, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud. Here, the author and playwright could escape from her growing celebrity and enjoy the company of friends and family: her only child, Rosalind Hicks; son-in-law Anthony Hicks; and grandson Mathew. As a result, her parents and sister supervised her studies in reading, writing and basic arithmetic, a subject she particularly enjoyed. [187] The television series Miss Marple (19841992), with Joan Hickson as "the BBC's peerless Miss Marple", adapted all 12 Marple novels. The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery is a collection of correspondence from her 1922 Grand Tour of the British Empire, including South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. [14]:36667[30]:8788 These books typically received better reviews than her detective and thriller fiction. After several months, Rosalind's grandmother, Clarissa Miller, died. A third novel, Murder on the Links, again featured Poirot, as did the short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of The Sketch magazine, from 1923. [14]:17374 On 3December 1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie announced his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his wife. In fact, since Christie's death in 1976, Mathew Prichard, the only child of the only child of the queen of crime fiction, who has overseen her literary estate for decades, was dead set against the idea of any author attempting a Christie continuation novel. [163], In her prime, Christie was rarely out of the bestseller list. [74][75], In 1946, Christie said of herself: "My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, gramophones and cinemas. [22], Christie settled into married life, giving birth to her only child, Rosalind Margaret Clarissa (later Hicks), in August 1919 at Ashfield. After his stepfather's death in 2005, Prichard donated Greenway and its contents to the National Trust. The novel was a New York Times[206] and USA Today bestseller. Following Rosalind's death in 2004, her son Mathew Prichard inherited her shares of the Agatha Christie Limited as well as the Greenway Estate, which he sold to the National Trust. Deeply wounded, Agatha moved back into Ashfield (which had been her own childhood home), where she was visited by her husband, who confessed his affair with his secretary Nancy Neele. [30]:81, Another of her lesser-known characters is Parker Pyne, a retired civil servant who assists unhappy people in an unconventional manner. In 2002, 117,696 Christie audiobooks were sold, in comparison to 97,755 for J. K. Rowling, 78,770 for Roald Dahl and 75,841 for J. R. R. [145] She said, "Plays are much easier to write than books, because you can see them in your mind's eye, you are not hampered by all that description which clogs you so terribly in a book and stops you from getting on with what's happening. [12]:7, When Fred's father died in 1869,[19] he left Clara 2,000 (approximately equivalent to 200,000 in 2021); in 1881 they used this to buy the leasehold of a villa in Torquay named Ashfield. [30]:93 In 1961, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature degree by the University of Exeter. [125]:58 Arsenic, aconite, strychnine, digitalis, thallium, and other substances were used to dispatch victims in the ensuing decades.[124]. [14]:301,304,313,414 The Mallowans also took side trips whilst travelling to and from expedition sites, visiting Italy, Greece, Egypt, Iran, and the Soviet Union, among other places. Edited and introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, this unique travelogue reveals a new side to Agatha Christie, demonstrating how her appetite for exotic plots and locations for her books began with this eye-opening trip, which took place just after only her second novel had been published (the first leg of the tour to South In 1947, the Anti-Defamation League in the US sent an official letter of complaint to Christie's American publishers, Dodd, Mead and Company, regarding perceived antisemitism in her works. [114] [208] [147], Many of Christie's works from 1940 onward have titles drawn from literature, with the original context of the title typically printed as an epigraph.[148]. A young Agatha is depicted in the Spanish historical television series Gran Hotel (2011) in which she finds inspiration to write her new novel while aiding local detectives. [4]:67[7] She described her childhood as "very happy". Want to Read. [12]:15557 They stayed for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel in Cairo. Christie's familial relationship to Margaret Miller ne West was complex. Over the ensuing decades, Oliver reappeared in seven novels. "[64], During World War II, Christie moved to London and lived in a flat at the Isokon in Hampstead, whilst working in the pharmacy at University College Hospital (UCH), London, where she updated her knowledge of poisons. See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro Getting Started | Contributor Zone Contribute to This Page Edit page To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic. [30]:170 It begins with the classic set-up of potential victim(s) and killer(s) isolated from the outside world, but then violates conventions. "[14]:282 Unlike Doyle, she resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. By Neil Prior. She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Alert readers could sometimes identify the culprit by identifying the least likely suspect. [4]:8,2021, Christie was a voracious reader from an early age. In about 1959 she transferred her 278-acre home, Greenway Estate, to her daughter, Rosalind Hicks. After living in a series of apartments in London, they bought a house in Sunningdale, Berkshire, which they renamed Styles after the mansion in Christie's first detective novel. [4]:14[5][6][7], Christie's mother Clara was born in Dublin in 1854[a] to British Army officer Frederick Boehmer[10] and his wife Mary Ann Boehmer ne West. [4]:4547, At 18, Christie wrote her first short story, "The House of Beauty", while recovering in bed from an illness. Hercule Poirot a professional sleuth would not be at home at all in Miss Marple's world."[112]. [96], In 1998, Booker sold its shares in Agatha Christie Limited (at the time earning 2,100,000, approximately equivalent to 3,900,000 in 2021 annual revenue) for 10,000,000 (approximately equivalent to 18,700,000 in 2021) to Chorion, whose portfolio of authors' works included the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley. Her last novel was Postern of Fate in 1973. (In fact, though this was technically true, it disguised Christie's identity through understatement. Thirty wreaths adorned Christie's grave, including one from the cast of her long-running play The Mousetrap and one sent "on behalf of the multitude of grateful readers" by the Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers. The inspirations for some of Christie's titles include: Christie biographer Gillian Gill said, "Christie's writing has the sparseness, the directness, the narrative pace, and the universal appeal of the fairy story, and it is perhaps as modern fairy stories for grown-up children that Christie's novels succeed. [14]:344[30]:190 Christie had a heart attack and a serious fall in 1974, after which she was unable to write. [14]:33 Fred died in November 1901 from pneumonia and chronic kidney disease. Come, Tell Me How You Live, about working on an archaeological dig, was drawn from her life with Mallowan. [14]:29596[59] Their marriage lasted until Christie's death in 1976. Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Hicks (ne Christie, previously Prichard) (1919-2004) was the only child of Agatha Christie. It is one of the most perfect physical pleasures I have known. More than a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes searched the rural landscape. [4] She remarried in 1949, to lawyer Anthony Arthur Hicks (26 September 1916 15 April 2005)[5] at Kensington, London, England. He is a producer, known for Being Poirot (2013), Agatha Christie's Poirot (1989) and Agatha Christie: A Woman of Mystery (2007). In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. During both World Wars, she served in hospital dispensaries, acquiring a thorough knowledge of the poisons that featured in many of her novels, short stories, and plays. Christie's obituary in The Times notes that "she never cared much for the cinema, or for wireless and television." [12]:2631 A year was spent abroad with her family, in the French Pyrenees, Paris, Dinard, and Guernsey. [95] Mathew Prichard also holds the copyright to some of his grandmother's later literary works including The Mousetrap. [30]:120, In 1928, Michael Morton adapted The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for the stage under the name of Alibi. [8] Rosalind also received 36% of Agatha Christie Limited and the copyrights to Christies play A Daughters a Daughter. Visit the official website of Agatha Christie. A year later, Rosalind's husband died in the Battle of Normandy. More than 30 feature films are based on her work. Christie features as a character in Gaylord Larsen's Dorothy and Agatha and The London Blitz Murders by Max Allan Collins. [4]:201 The Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, the eastern terminus of the railway, claims the book was written there and maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author. She was first married to Hubert Prichard, and after his death she married Anthony Hicks. He is a producer, known for Poirot (1989), Death on the Nile (2022) and Marple (2004). [83][92], In 2004, Hicks' obituary in The Telegraph noted that she had been "determined to remain true to her mother's vision and to protect the integrity of her creations" and disapproved of "merchandising" activities. Mathew Prichard was born in 1943 in Cheshire, England as Mathew T Prichard. [14]:366 Of the first, Giant's Bread published in 1930, a reviewer for The New York Times wrote, "her book is far above the average of current fiction, in fact, comes well under the classification of a 'good book'. The grandson of celebrated crime writer Agatha Christie is Welsh National Opera 's new honorary president.. A lifelong supporter of the arts in Wales, Mr Prichard has a long standing association . She didn't want to educate, she didn't want to change their lives. [14]:278 Marple was a genteel, elderly spinster who solved crimes using analogies to English village life. "[181][182], Her characters and her face appeared on the stamps of many countries like Dominica and the Somali Republic. [82], Christie was unhappy about becoming "an employed wage slave",[14]:428 and for tax reasons set up a private company in 1955, Agatha Christie Limited, to hold the rights to her works. The pair appear in 14 short stories, 12 of which were collected in 1930 as The Mysterious Mr. [134], In addition to Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, Christie also created amateur detectives Thomas (Tommy) Beresford and his wife, Prudence "Tuppence" ne Cowley, who appear in four novels and one collection of short stories published between 1922 and 1974. [205] In 2019, Honeysuckle Weeks portrayed Christie in an episode, "No Friends Like Old Friends", in a Canadian drama, Frankie Drake Mysteries. Poirot's first film appearance was in 1931 in Alibi, which starred Austin Trevor as Christie's sleuth. [3], Christie died peacefully on 12January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her home at Winterbrook House. [12]:139 In 1905, her mother sent her to Paris, where she was educated in a series of pensionnats (boarding schools), focusing on voice training and piano playing. Here, her only grandson, Mathew Prichard, who oversaw her literary estate for many decades, recommends books that give a good sense of the range of her work, from Miss Marple to Hercule Poirot to mysteries featuring neither, and including her best short story. [4]:222 She married off Poirot's "Watson", Captain Arthur Hastings, in an attempt to trim her cast commitments. At age 7, Rosalind and her parents moved to Sunningdale, where they bought a house, naming it Styles. (3 children) | See more Relatives: Agatha Christie (grandparent) Edit Did You Know? saving. [131], In September 2015, to mark her 125th birthday, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. As an adult, she spent much of her time in the Greenway Estate, which her mother bought in 1938. [186], The television adaptation Agatha Christie's Poirot (19892013), with David Suchet in the title role, ran for 70 episodes over 13 series. [1] Her novel And Then There Were None is one of the top-selling books of all time, with approximately 100 million copies sold. James Prichard is known for Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022) and The Pale Horse (2020). [172][173][174][175] She is also the UK's best-selling spoken-book author. "[12]:457 Critics agreed she had succeeded: "The arrogant Mrs. Christie this time set herself a fearsome test of her own ingenuity the reviews, not surprisingly, were without exception wildly adulatory. [154] In 2013, she was voted "best crime writer" in a survey of 600 members of the Crime Writers' Association of professional novelists. Later that year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award for best play. [126] Many of her clues are mundane objects: a calendar, a coffee cup, wax flowers, a beer bottle, a fireplace used during a heat wave. [66][67], The British intelligence agency MI5 investigated Christie after a character called Major Bletchley appeared in her 1941 thriller N or M?, which was about a hunt for a pair of deadly fifth columnists in wartime England. Nothing like rushing through the water at what seems to you a speed of about two hundred miles an hour. There is no need to dwell on it. Anthony Horowitz (Goodreads Author) 3.95 avg rating 115,255 ratings published 2016. add/edit characters. [30]:33, In 1922, the Christies joined an around-the-world promotional tour for the British Empire Exhibition, led by Major Ernest Belcher. [167] As of 2020[update], her novels had sold more than two billion copies in 44 languages. The lure of the past came up to grab me. Following her marriage to archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930, she spent several months each year on digs in the Middle East and used her first-hand knowledge of this profession in her fiction. [4]:372 Her daughter authorised the publication of Curtain in 1975,[4]:375 and Sleeping Murder was published posthumously in 1976. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". After Christie's authorship of the first four Westmacott novels was revealed by a journalist in 1949, she wrote two more, the last in 1956. "It doesn't lose its specialness, even at seven o'clock in the morning!" She felt differently about the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express, directed by Sidney Lumet, which featured major stars and high production values; her attendance at the London premiere was one of her last public outings. [119] Author Dilys Winn called Christie "the doyenne of Coziness", a sub-genre which "featured a small village setting, a hero with faintly aristocratic family connections, a plethora of red herrings and a tendency to commit homicide with sterling silver letter openers and poisons imported from Paraguay". Other portrayals, such as the Hungarian film Kojak Budapesten (1980), create their own scenarios involving Christie's criminal skill. Mathew Prichard (born 1943) is the son of Hubert Prichard and Rosalind Hicks, and the only grandchild of Agatha Christie. Following the breakdown of her marriage and the death of her mother in 1926 she made international headlines by going missing for eleven days. [12]:910,8688 She eventually made friends with other girls in Torquay, noting that "one of the highlights of my existence" was her appearance with them in a youth production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard, in which she played the hero, Colonel Fairfax. [30]:78,80[135] Mallowan described these tales as "detection in a fanciful vein, touching on the fairy story, a natural product of Agatha's peculiar imagination". He is a producer, known for Poirot (1989), Death on the Nile (2022) and Agatha Christie's Marple (2004). "[124]:viii There were to be many medical practitioners, pharmacists, and scientists, nave or suspicious, in Christie's cast of characters; featuring in Murder in Mesopotamia, Cards on the Table, The Pale Horse, and Mrs. McGinty's Dead, among many others. [58] Other novels (such as Peril at End House) were set in and around Torquay, where she was raised. Agatha Christie: An Autobiography was published posthumously in 1977 and adjudged the Best Critical/Biographical Work at the 1978 Edgar Awards. She did so, and signed a contract committing her next five books to The Bodley Head, which she later felt was exploitative. The son of a barrister in the Indian Civil Service, Archie was a Royal Artillery officer who was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in April 1913. [102] Subsequent productions have included The Witness for the Prosecution[103] but plans to televise Ordeal by Innocence at Christmas 2017 were delayed because of controversy surrounding one of the cast members. That was an essential part of her charm. Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Hicks (formerly Prichard, ne Christie; 5 August 1919 28 October 2004) was the only child of author Agatha Christie. Gallery Agatha with her daughter Rosalind Right here at FameChain. Family Memories Hear and see what others, including Agatha Christie's grandson Mathew Prichard and daughter Rosalind Hicks, have to say about Christie's life, writing and more. The film Agatha and the Truth of Murder (2018) sends her under cover to solve the murder of Florence Nightingale's goddaughter, Florence Nightingale Shore. [209] Christie was portrayed by Shirley Henderson in the 2022 comedy/mystery film See How They Run. [180], In 2016, the Royal Mail marked the centenary of Christie's first detective story by issuing six first class postage stamps of her works: The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None, The Body in the Library, and A Murder is Announced. These included "The Call of Wings" and "The Little Lonely God". Archie married Nancy Neele a week later. [c] Christie's disappearance made international headlines, including featuring on the front page of The New York Times. [4]:16970 In Iraq, she became friends with archaeologist Leonard Woolley and his wife, who invited her to return to their dig in February 1930. [161][162] On the record-breaking longevity of Christie's The Mousetrap which had marked its 60th anniversary in 2012, Stephen Moss in The Guardian wrote, "the play and its author are the stars". There, she was found by the police ten days later and never spoke to Rosalind about the incident. [14]:6467 In October 1912, she was introduced to Archibald "Archie" Christie at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke, about 12 miles (19 kilometres) from Torquay. [108] Death Comes as the End will be the next BBC adaptation. Mathew Prichard Children. Structural Info Facts Filmography Awards Known for movies Being Poirot (2013) as Producer [176][177] In 2015, the Christie estate claimed And Then There Were None was "the best-selling crime novel of all time",[178] with approximately 100 million sales, also making it one of the highest-selling books of all time. Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Christie was born on 5 August 1919 in her grandmother's home, Ashfield, Torquay. [4]:15459[40][51] The author Jared Cade concluded that Christie planned the event to embarrass her husband but did not anticipate the resulting public melodrama. [164] She was the first crime writer to have 100,000 copies of 10 of her titles published by Penguin on the same day in 1948.
