The years of the life of Agatha Christie. Brief biography of agatha christie

Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan (Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan), nee Miller (Miller), better known by the name of her first husband 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 most theatrical productions of a work. Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap was first staged in 1952 and is still on continuous display. At the tenth anniversary of the play at the Ambassador Theater in London, in an interview with ITN, Agatha Christie admitted that she did not consider the play to be the best for staging in London, but the audience liked it, and she herself goes to the play several times a year.

Her parents were wealthy immigrants from the United States. She was youngest daughter in the Miller family. The Miller family had two more children: Margaret Frary (1879-1950) and son Louis Montan "Monty" (1880-1929). Agatha received a good home education, in particular, musical education, and only stage fright prevented her from becoming a musician.

During World War I, Agatha worked as a nurse in a hospital; she liked this profession and she spoke of it as "one of the most useful professions that a person can engage in." She also worked as a pharmacist in a pharmacy, which later left an imprint on her work: 83 crimes in her works were committed through poisoning.

For the first time, Agatha married 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 creative way Agatha Christie. In 1920, Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. There is speculation that Christie's reason for contacting the detective was an argument with older sister Madge (who has already proven herself as a writer) that she, too, will be able to create something worthy of publication. Only in the seventh publishing house the manuscript was printed with a circulation of 2000 copies. The aspiring writer received a £25 fee.

In 1926, Agatha's mother died. At the end of that year, Agatha Christie's husband Archibald confessed to being unfaithful 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 claiming to have gone 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, in the cabin of which her fur coat was found. A few days later, the writer herself was discovered. As it turned out, Agatha Christie registered under the name Theresa Neal at the small spa hotel Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel). Christy 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 are analyzed by the British psychologist Andrew Norman in his book The Finished Portrait, where he, in particular, argues that the traumatic amnesia hypothesis 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, visiting the library. However, after reviewing 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, the marriage of Archibald and Agatha Christie ended in divorce in 1928.

In 1930, while traveling in Iraq, she met her future husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, during the excavations in Ur. 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 of the 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. In this marriage, Agatha Christie lived the rest of her life, until her death in 1976.

Thanks to Christie's travels with her husband to the Middle East, the events of several of her works took place there. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in or around the city of 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.

Christy often stayed at the Abney Hall mansion in Cheshire, which belonged to her brother-in-law James Watts. The action of at least two of Christie's works took place 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 Burial". “Abney became an inspiration for Agatha; from which were taken descriptions of such places as Stiles, Chimneys, Stonegates and other houses that in one way or another represent Abney.

In 1956, Agatha Christie was awarded the Order of the British Empire, and in 1971, for achievements in the field of literature, Agatha Christie was awarded the title of Cavalierdam (Eng. Dame Commander) of the Order of the British Empire, the owners of which also acquire the title of nobility "lady", 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 achievements in the field of archeology.

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. Specialists at the University of Toronto examined Christie's style of writing during these years and suggested that Agatha Christie suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

In 1975, when she was completely weakened, Christie transferred all the rights to her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson.

The writer died on January 12, 1976 at her 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 bestowed on me."

Christie's only daughter, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, also lived to 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 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 in the company of friends or family, while in her head she was working on thinking about a new 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 from anywhere. Ideas were entered into a special notebook full of various notes about poisons, newspaper notes about crimes. The same thing happened with the characters. One of the characters created by Agatha had a real-life prototype - Major Ernst Belcher, who at one time was the boss of Agatha Christie's first husband, Archibald Christie. It was he who became the prototype of Pedler in the 1924 novel The Man in the Brown Suit about Colonel Reis.

Agatha Christie was not afraid to touch on social issues in her works. For example, at least two of Christie's novels (The Five Little Pigs and The Trial of Innocence) dealt with 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 sexual crimes the theme of her novels. Unlike today's detective stories, there are practically no scenes of violence, pools of blood and rudeness in her works. “The detective was a story with a moral. Like everyone who wrote and read these books, I was against the criminal and for innocent victim. No one could have imagined that the time would come when detective stories would be read because of the scenes of violence described in them, for the sake of getting 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 island on which the action of the novel takes place is written off from nature - this is the island of Burgh in South Britain. Readers also appreciated the book - it has the largest sales in stores, however, to maintain political correctness, it is now sold under the name "And there were none."

In her work, Agatha Christie demonstrates the conservatism of political views, quite typical of the English mentality. A prime example is the story "The Clerk's Story" from the cycle about Parker Pyne, about one of the heroes of which it is said: "He had some kind of Bolshevik complex." In a number of works - "Big Four", "Orient Express", "Capture of Cerberus" there are immigrants from the Russian aristocracy, who enjoy the author's invariable sympathy. In the aforementioned story "The Clerk's Story", Mr. Pine's client becomes involved in a group of agents passing on secret blueprints of Britain's enemies to the League of Nations. But by decision of Pine, a legend is invented for the hero that he is carrying jewelry belonging to a beautiful Russian aristocrat and saving them, along with the mistress, from agents of Soviet Russia.

The most famous characters in the novels of Agatha Christie:

In 1920, Christie published his first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which had previously been rejected five times by British publishers. Soon she has a whole series of works in which a Belgian detective acts. 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 couple 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 story The Tuesday Night Club. The prototype of Miss Marple was the grandmother of Agatha Christie, 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 got 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 popularity. According to the writer's grandson, Matthew Prichard, of the characters she invented, Christie liked Miss Marple more - "an old, smart, traditional English lady."

During World War II, Christie wrote two novels, Curtain (1940) and Sleeping Murder, which she intended to end the Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series of novels, respectively. However, the books were published only in the 70s.

Colonel Flight(Eng. Colonel Race) appears in four novels by Agatha Christie. Colonel - agent british intelligence, he travels the world in search of international criminals. Reis is an employee of the MI5 espionage department. He is a tall, well-built, tanned man.

He first appears in The Man in the Brown Suit, a spy detective story set in South Africa. He also appears in the two Hercule Poirot novels Cards on the Table and Death on the Nile, where he assists Poirot in his investigation. AT last time he appears in the 1944 novel Blazing Cyanide investigating the murder of his old friend. In this novel, Reis has already reached an advanced age.

Parker Pine(Eng. Parker Pyne) - the hero of 12 stories included in the collection "Investigates Parker Pyne", and also partially in the collections "The Secret of the Regatta and Other Stories" and "Trouble in Pollença and Other Stories". The Parker Pine series is not detective fiction in the conventional sense. The plot is usually based not on a crime, but on the story of Pine's clients, who, according to different reasons dissatisfied with their lives. It is these grievances that bring clients to Pine's agency. In this series of works, Miss Lemon appears for the first time, leaving her job with Pine to get a job as a secretary to Hercule Poirot.

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford(Eng. Tommy and Tuppence Beresford), full names Thomas Beresford and Prudence Cowley are a young couple of amateur detectives who first appear in the 1922 novel The Mysterious Adversary, unmarried. They begin their lives blackmailing (for money and out of interest), but soon discover that private investigation brings more money and pleasure. In 1929, Tuppence and Tomy appear in the storybook Partners in Crime, in 1941 in N or M?, in 1968 in Snap Your Finger Only Once, and most recently in the 1973 novel Gates of Destiny. , which was Agatha Christie's last written novel, though not the last to be published. Unlike the rest of Agatha Christie's detectives, Tommy and Tuppence age with the real world and with every subsequent novel. So, by the last novel where they appear, they are in their seventies.

Superintendent Battle(Eng. Superintendent Battle) is a fictional detective, the hero of five novels by Agatha Christie. 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 employee of Scotland Yard, he is a cultured and intelligent policeman who rarely shows his emotions. Christy tells little about him: for example, Battle's name remains unknown. It is known about Battle's family 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 Mysterious adversary Secret Adversary
1923 Golf Course Murder Murder on the Links
1924 Man in the Brown Suit

1924 Poirot investigates Poirot Investigates (11 stories):

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

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

1933 The Hound of Death (12 stories):

Death Hound
Red signal
fourth person
Gypsy
Lamp
I'll come for you, Mary!
Prosecution Witness
The secret of the blue jug
The Amazing Incident of Sir Arthur Carmichael
call of the wings
Last seance
SOS

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

1934 The Listerdale Mystery (12 stories):

Listerdale Mystery
Filomela Cottage
The girl on the train
Six pence song
Metamorphosis of Edward Robinson
Accident
Jane is looking for a job
Fruitful Sunday
Mr. Eastwood's Adventure
red ball
Raja Emerald
a swan song

1935 Three Act Tragedy
1935 Why not Evans? Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
1935 Death in the Clouds
1936 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 driveway
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 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 One Finger, Limstock Vacation, Moving Finger, Finger of Destiny Moving Finger
1944 Zero hour
1944 Towards Zero
1944 Sparkling Cyanide
1945 Death Comes as the End
1946 The Hollow
1947 Labors of Hercules The Labors of Hercules
1948 Taken at the Flood
1948 Prosecution witness 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 Tikhon "The Hounded Dog" The Under Dog and Other Stories
1952 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 Dead Man's Folly
1957 At 4.50 from Paddington 4.50 from Paddington
1957 Ordeal by Innocence Ordeal by Innocence
1959 Cat Among the Pigeons

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

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

1961 The Pale Horse Villa
1961 Double Sin and Other Stories
1962 And cracked, 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 Click your finger just once By the Pricking of My Thumbs
1969 Halloween party Hallowe'en Party
1970 Passenger from Frankfurt Passenger to Frankfurt
1971 Nemesis Nemesis
1971 The Golden Ball and Other Stories The Golden Ball and Other Stories
1972 Elephants Can Remember
1973 Gates of Fate Postern 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 candies
Submarine blueprints
Apartment on the fourth floor
double sin
The Secret of Market Basing
Vespiary
Veiled lady
maritime investigation
How wonderful everything is in your garden ...

1975 Curtain
1976 Sleeping Murder

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

Holy place
unusual joke
measure of death
The caretaker's case
The case of the best of the maids
Miss Marple tells
Doll in the fitting room
In the dusk of a mirror

1991 Trouble in Pollensa and Other Stories Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories (Storybook):

Service "Harlequin"
Second gong strike
The case of love
yellow irises
magnolia flower
Case in Pollenza
Together with the dog
Mysterious incident during the regatta

1997 The Harlequin Tea Set

1997 As Long as the Light Lasts and Other Stories While the Light Lasts and Other Stories (Collected Stories):

House of his dreams
Actress
On the edge
Christmas Adventure
lonely god
Manx Gold
Beyond the walls
The Secret of the Baghdad Chest
How long does the light...

Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan (Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan), nee Miller (Miller), better known by the name of her first husband as Agatha Christie was born September 15, 1890 in Torquay, Devon.

Her parents were wealthy immigrants from the United States. She was the youngest daughter. The Miller family had two more children: Margaret Frary (1879-1950) and son Louis Montan "Monty" (1880-1929). Agatha received a good home education, in particular, musical education, and only stage fright prevented her from becoming a musician.

During World War I, Agatha worked as a nurse in a hospital; she liked this profession and she spoke of it as "one of the most useful professions that 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.

The first time Agatha got married on Christmas in 1914 for 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 was the beginning of the creative path of Agatha Christie. In 1920 Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. There is speculation that the reason for Christie's approach to the detective was a dispute with her older sister Madge (who had already proved herself as a writer) that she, too, could create something worthy of publication. Only in the seventh publishing house the manuscript was printed with a circulation of 2000 copies. The aspiring writer received a £25 fee. In 1922 together with her husband, Agatha Christie made a round-the-world voyage along the route Great Britain - the Bay of Biscay - South Africa - Australia and New Zealand- Hawaiian Islands - Canada - USA - UK.

In 1926 Agatha's mother died. At the end of that year, Agatha Christie's husband Archibald confessed to being unfaithful and asked for a divorce because he had fallen in love with fellow golfer Nancy Neal. After a fight early December 1926 Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving a letter to her secretary claiming to have gone 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.

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

In 1930 While traveling in Iraq, at the 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 of the 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. In this marriage, Agatha Christie lived the rest of her life.

Thanks to Christie's travels with her husband to the Middle East, the events of several of her works took place there. Other novels (such as The Ten Little Indians) were set in or around the city of Torquay, the place where Christie was born. The novel "Murder on the Orient Express" 1934) was written at the Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. Room 411 of the hotel where Agatha Christie lived is now her memorial museum. The Greenway Estate in Devon, which the couple bought in 1938, is under the protection of the Society for the Protection of Monuments (National Trust).

Christie often stayed at the Abney Hall mansion in Cheshire, which belonged to James Watts, her sister's husband. The action of at least two of Christie's works took place on this estate.

In 1956 Agatha Christie was awarded the Order of the British Empire, and in 1971 for achievements in the field of literature, Agatha Christie was awarded the title Dame Commander (Dame Commander) of the Order of the British Empire, the owners of which also acquire the title of nobility "lady", used before the name. Three years earlier in 1968 The title of Knight of the Order of the British Empire was also awarded to Agatha Christie's husband, Max Mallowan, for achievements in the field of archeology.

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. Specialists at the University of Toronto examined Christie's style of writing during these years and suggested that Agatha Christie suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

In 1975, when she was completely weakened, Christie transferred all the rights to her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson.

The writer died January 12, 1976 at home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire after a short cold and was buried in the village of Cholsey.

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 most theatrical productions of a work. Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap was first staged in 1952 and is still on display to this day.

In 1920 Christie publishes her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which had previously been rejected five times by British publishers. 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 couple 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 story 1927 of the year "Evening club "Tuesday"" (The Tuesday Night Club). The prototype of Miss Marple was the grandmother of Agatha Christie, 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 got tired of her hero Hercule Poirot by the end of the 1930s, but unlike Conan Doyle, she did not dare to “kill” the detective while he was at the peak of popularity. According to the writer's grandson, Matthew Prichard, of the characters she invented, Christie liked Miss Marple more - "an old, smart, traditional English lady."

During World War II, Christie wrote two Curtain novels ( 1940 ) and 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 1970s.

Other detectives of Agatha Christie:

Colonel Race appears in four Agatha Christie novels. The colonel is an agent of British intelligence, he travels the world in search of international criminals. Reis is an employee of the MI5 espionage department. He is a tall, well-built, tanned man.

He first appears in The Man in the Brown Suit, a spy detective story set in South Africa. He also appears in the 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 novel. 1944 of the year "Sparkling Cyanide", where he investigates the murder of his old friend. In this novel, Reis has already reached an advanced age.

Parker Pyne is the hero of 12 stories included in the collection Investigating Parker Pyne, as well as partially in the collections The Mystery of the Regatta and Other Stories and Trouble in Pollença and Other Stories. The Parker Pine series is not detective fiction in the conventional sense. The plot is usually based not on a crime, but on the story of Pine's clients, who, for various reasons, are dissatisfied with their lives. It is these grievances that bring clients to Pine's agency. In this series of works, Miss Lemon appears for the first time, leaving her job with Pine to get a job as a secretary to Hercule Poirot.

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, full names Thomas Beresford and Prudence Cowley, are a young amateur detective couple who first appears in the novel The Mysterious Adversary. 1922 years, not yet married. They begin their lives blackmailing (for money and out of interest), but soon discover that private investigation brings more money and pleasure. In 1929, Tuppence and Tomy appear in the storybook Partners in Crime, in 1941 in N or M?, in 1968 in Snap Your Finger Only Once, and most recently in the 1973 novel Gates of Destiny. , which was Agatha Christie's last written novel, though not the last to be published. Unlike the rest of Agatha Christie's detectives, Tommy and Tuppence age with the real world and with each successive novel. So, by the last novel where they appear, they are in their seventies.

English Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, nee Miller(English) Miller), better known by the name of her first husband 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, nee Miller, but she is known to the whole world as Agatha Christie, by the name of her first husband. One of the most popular detective writers. Her writings rank third in terms of number of publications after the Bible and William Shakespeare, translated into more than one hundred languages. During her lifetime alone, her books were published in more than 120 million copies.

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

To the first world war Agatha Miller worked as a nurse and did it with pleasure. She also had a job as a pharmacy pharmacist in her life, which subsequently helped her repeatedly “kill” her literary characters through poisoning.

In 1914, Agatha Miller became Agatha Christie by 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 with her older sister: Agatha wanted to prove that she could write a book that the general public would see. The manuscript of an unknown writer was taken only in the seventh publishing house, having paid a very modest fee. The beginning of the creative path was very successful, the novel immediately made its author famous.

A bright 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 a 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 her husband, to bring on him the inevitable suspicion of the murder of his wife.

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

In 1956, A. Christie became a Commander 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 bestowed on me." For services in the field of literary activity in 1971, Agatha Christie was awarded the title of Cavalier of the Order of the British Empire.

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

In the popular and before her genre of literary detective, Agatha Christie acted as the creator of a new direction, emphasizing 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 heritage includes more than seven dozen novels, 19 collections of short stories, more than thirty plays, the most famous of which were The Mousetrap (1954) and Witness for the Prosecution (1954). The first is included in the Guinness Book of Records as a work that has withstood the maximum number of theatrical productions. Based on the works of the "queen of detectives" many films were shot.

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 son Louis Montan "Monty" (1880-1929). Agatha received a good home education, in particular, musical education, and only stage fright prevented her from becoming a musician.

During World War I, Agatha worked as a nurse in a hospital; she liked this profession and she spoke of her as " one of the most rewarding jobs a person can do". 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.

For the first time, Agatha married 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 was the beginning of the creative path of Agatha Christie. In 1920, Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. There is speculation that the reason for Christie's approach to the detective was a dispute with her older sister Madge (who had already proved herself as a writer) that she, too, could create something worthy of publication. Only in the seventh publishing house the manuscript was printed with a circulation of 2000 copies. The aspiring writer received a £25 fee. In 1922, together with her husband, Agatha Christie made a round-the-world voyage along the route Great Britain - the Bay of Biscay - South Africa - Australia and New Zealand - Hawaiian Islands - Canada - USA - Great Britain ..

disappearance

Agatha's car was found, in the cabin of which her fur coat was found. A few days later, the writer herself was discovered. As it turned out, Agatha Christie registered under the name Teresa Neal in the small spa hotel Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel). Christy 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 are analyzed by the British psychologist Andrew Norman in his book The Finished Portrait, where he, in particular, argues that the traumatic amnesia hypothesis 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, visiting the library. However, after reviewing 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, the marriage of Archibald and Agatha Christie 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 travels with her husband to the Middle East, the events of several of her works took place there. Other novels (such as The Ten Little Indians) were set in or around the city of 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. Estate The Greenway Estate in Devon, which the couple bought in 1938, is protected by the National Trust.

Christy often stayed at the Abney Hall mansion in Cheshire, which belonged to James Watts, her sister's husband. The action of at least two of Christie's works took place 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 Burial". “Abney became an inspiration for Agatha; from which were taken descriptions of such places as Stiles, Chimneys, Stonegates and other houses that in one way or another represent Abney.

In 1956, Agatha Christie was awarded the Order of the British Empire, and in 1971, for achievements in the field of literature, Agatha Christie was awarded the title Lady Commander(Eng. Dame Commander) of the Order of the British Empire, the owners of which also acquire the noble title "lady", 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 achievements in the field of archeology.

In 1958, the writer headed the English Detective Club.

In 1975, when she was completely weakened, Christie transferred all the rights to her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson.

The writer died on January 12, 1976 at her home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire after a short cold and was buried in the village of Cholsey.

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 was bestowed on me.».

Christie's only daughter, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, also lived to 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 think is frankly bad?” I replied indignantly: “No!” No book came out exactly as intended, was my answer, and I was never satisfied, but if my book had turned out really bad, I would never have published it.

Agatha Christie "Autobiography"

In an interview with the British broadcaster BBC in 1955, Agatha Christie said that she spent her evenings knitting in the company of friends or family, and at that time she was working on a new storyline in her head, 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 from anywhere. Ideas were entered into a special notebook full of various notes about poisons, newspaper notes about crimes. The same thing happened with the characters. One of the characters created by Agatha had a real-life prototype - Major Ernst Belcher, who at one time was the boss of Agatha Christie's first husband, Archibald Christie. It was he who became the prototype of Pedler in the 1924 novel The Man in the Brown Suit about Colonel Reis.

The writer has never made sexual crimes the theme of her novels. Unlike today's detective stories, there are practically no scenes of violence, pools of blood and rudeness in her works. “The detective 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 because of the scenes of violence described in them, for the sadistic pleasure of cruelty for the sake of cruelty ... "- so 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 political views, quite typical of the English mentality. A vivid example is the story "The Clerk's Story" from the Parker Pyne cycle, about one of whose heroes it is said: "He had some kind of Bolshevik complex." In a number of works - "Big Four", "Orient Express", "Capture of Cerberus" there are immigrants from the Russian aristocracy, who enjoy the author's invariable sympathy. In the aforementioned story "The Clerk's Story", Mr. Pine's client becomes involved in a group of agents passing on secret blueprints of Britain's enemies to the League of Nations. But by decision of Pine, a legend is invented for the hero that he is carrying jewelry belonging to a beautiful Russian aristocrat and saving them, along with the mistress, from agents of Soviet Russia.

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple

In 1920, Christie published his first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which had previously been rejected five times by British publishers. 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 couple 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 story " Evening Club "Tuesday"“” (Eng. The Tuesday Night Club). The prototype of Miss Marple was the grandmother of Agatha Christie, 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."

Other detectives of Agatha Christie

Colonel Flight(Eng. Colonel Race) appears in four novels by Agatha Christie. The colonel is an agent of British intelligence, he travels the world in search of international criminals. Reis is an employee of the MI5 espionage department. He is a tall, well-built, tanned man.

He first appears in the novel man in brown suit”, a spy detective set in South Africa. He also appears in the two Hercule Poirot novels Cards on the Table and Death on the Nile, where he assists Poirot in his investigation. He makes his last appearance in the 1944 novel Blazing Cyanide, investigating the murder of an old friend. In this novel, Reis has already reached an advanced age.

Parker Pine(Eng. Parker Pyne) - the hero of 12 stories included in the collection " Investigates Parker Pine", and also partially in the collections" The Secret of the Regatta and Other Stories" and " Trouble in Pollença and other stories". The Parker Pine series is not detective fiction in the conventional sense. The plot is usually based not on a crime, but on the story of Pine's clients, who, for various reasons, are dissatisfied with their lives. It is these grievances that bring clients to Pine's agency. In this series of works, Miss Lemon appears for the first time, leaving her job with Pine to get a job as a secretary to Hercule Poirot.

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford(eng. Tommy and Tuppence Beresford), full names Thomas Beresford and Prudence Cowley - a young couple of amateur detectives, first appearing in the novel "The Mysterious Adversary" in 1922, not yet married. They begin their lives blackmailing (for money and out of interest), but soon discover that private investigation brings more money and pleasure. In 1929, Tuppence and Tomy appear in the collection of 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 written novel by Agatha Christie, although not the last published. Unlike the rest of Agatha Christie's detectives, Tommy and Tuppence age with the real world and with each successive novel. So, by the last novel where they appear, they are in their seventies.

Superintendent Battle(Eng. Superintendent Battle) - a detective, the 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 employee of Scotland Yard, he is a cultured and intelligent policeman who rarely shows his emotions. Christy tells little about him: for example, Battle's name remains unknown. It is known about Battle's family that his wife's name is Mary and that they have five children.

Inspector Narracot - 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 Flight
Tommy and Tuppence Beresford

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

Parker Pine
harley kin
Mr Satterthwaite

About Agatha Christie

Hack R. The Duchess of Death. Biography of Agatha Christie / Per. from English. M. Makarova. - M.: Hummingbird, Azbuka-Atticus, 2011. - 480 p., 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 crater Christie on Venus was named in her honor.
On November 25, 2012, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the play "The Mousetrap", a monument to Agatha Christie is planned to be unveiled in the theater district of London, in the very center of Covent Garden (sculptor Ben Twiston-Davies)
In 1985, the Russian rock band "Agatha Christie" was named after her.

Computer games

A trilogy based on the books by Agatha Christie computer games in the quest genre, as well as casual games.

Childhood and youth of Agatha

Agatha's childhood years were spent at Ashfield Manor in Torquay. Ashfield remained in Agatha's memory as a symbol of a happy childhood. “Despite the fact that my parents loved social life, in Ashfield I had silence and the opportunity to retire,” Agatha recalled many years later. The need for solitude arose for Agatha very early: already at the age of four, she preferred the company of Tony the Yorkshire terrier, conversations with the nanny and the family of kittens created by her rich imagination to the company of her peers.

She was considered a girl not very smart. But this did not affect parental love to my daughter. Mom and dad were forced to state: unlike brother Monty and sister Madge - lively, energetic, never climbing into their pocket for a word - little Agatha did nothing but get lost, embarrassed and stammered.

Agatha did not shine in school either. However, at that time, studying for a girl seemed to be a completely abstract concept, and there was no need to even attend school. From childhood, young ladies were prepared exclusively for a successful marriage, they were taught needlework, music, and dancing. However, attention was paid to competent writing even then: successfully responding to the gallant message of the future gentleman is no joke. So, Agatha always had problems with grammar. And until the very end of her days, having already become a great writer, now and then she made gross grammatical errors.

Agatha completely ignored the toys that her parents bought, she could roll an old hoop along the garden paths for hours.Agatha Christie later recalled these games as follows:
“Thinking about what gave me the greatest pleasure in childhood, I tend to believe that the hoop belonged to the firm championship, this simplest toy that cost ... how much? Six pence? Shilling? No more. And what an invaluable relief for parents, nannies and servants! On a fine day, Agatha goes into the garden to play with a hoop, and everyone can be completely calm and free until the next meal, or, more precisely, until the moment when hunger makes itself felt.

The hoop in turn turned into a horse, sea monster and the railroad. Chasing the hoop down the paths of the garden, I became either a knight-errant in armor, a court lady on a white horse, Clover (from Kittens) escaping from prison, or - somewhat less romantically - a machinist, conductor or passenger on three railways. my own invention.

I developed three branches: "Trubnaya" - a railway with eight stations, three-quarters of the garden, "Bakovaya" - a freight train went along it, serving a short branch, starting from a huge tank with a crane under a pine tree, and "Terrace" railway, that walked around the house. More recently, I found a sheet of cardboard in a closet on which, some sixty years ago, I clumsily drew a plan of railroad tracks.

I just can’t comprehend now why it gave me such inexplicable pleasure to drive the hoop in front of me, stop and shout: “Lily of the valley”. Transfer to Trubnaya. "Pipe". “Ultimate. Please vacate the wagons." I played like this for hours. It must have been great exercise. I learned with all diligence the art of throwing my hoop so that it returned to me, this trick was taught to me by one of our friends - naval officers. At first, nothing worked out for me, but I tried hard again and again and finally caught the right movement - how happy I was!

Once the nanny, after observing the girl more closely, discovered that Agatha, being alone, was constantly talking to herself. That is, not even with himself, but with non-existent interlocutors. At home, she had long conversations with some kittens, and in the garden she greeted the trees and asked them about the events of the previous night ...
Little Agatha loved to listen to the stories of relatives who came from the colonies and secretly dreamed of seeing the whole world with her own eyes. But at home she was prepared for another role - the role of a respectable wife: they taught the art of pleasing her husband and cooking well.

Agatha's mother believed that children should not be allowed to read until they were eight years old. But from early childhood, little Agatha showed an increased interest in “squiggle letters”. Already at the age of four, to the surprise of the nanny and parents, she began to read on her own - and since then she has not parted with books. Storybooks are her favorite holiday gift, and the library in the study room is often raided.

Agatha's desk book was Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. And the first detective she heard - "The Blue Carbuncle" by Arthur Conan Doyle - was told to little Agatha by her sister Maggie. As Agatha later recalled, it was then that “in some corner of my brain, where topics for books are born, the thought appeared: “Someday I will write a detective novel myself.” Subsequently, it was from the style of Conan Doyle that the writer Agatha Christie learned to write her detective stories.

Agatha wrote her first story in 1896, expressing in it her cherished childhood dream: to be a real lady. This meant "always leave some food on your plate, stick an extra stamp on the envelope, and put on clean underwear before traveling by rail in case of disaster."

Agatha dutifully followed these and a thousand more instructions from her nanny and once asked when, finally, she would become Lady Agatha? The nanny, a convinced realist, replied: "This will never happen. Lady Agatha can only be born, that is, be the daughter of an earl or duke." Agatha was very upset. And, as it turned out later, completely in vain. In a few decades, she will still become Lady Agatha, and the dream destroyed by the nanny will be realized in 1971 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

In the meantime, Agatha studied proper lady manners, took piano lessons and studied with a home teacher. She began to read early, but calligraphy, grammar and spelling were much harder for her. Having already become famous, Agatha Christie continued to write with errors. But mathematics fascinated her. It seemed to Agatha that behind the conditions of the simplest problems like "John has five apples, George has six" there is a real intrigue. Which of these boys loves apples more? Where did they even get apples from? And wouldn't something happen to John if he ate the apple George gave him?

Agatha's life, like that of the entire Miller family, was carefree: a steady income in the form of interest from grandfather's capital, secular society in Ashfield, summer trips to France ... "I did not suspect that there was another, not so pleasant world behind the doors of the nursery" - recalled Agatha.

But in November 1901, Father Fred Miller died. Stunned by grief, eleven-year-old Agatha did not immediately realize that the life of the family had changed. Clara did not leave her bedroom for weeks, refusing to communicate even with children. Madge, the pride of her father, got married. Monty experienced the death of his father harder than others: he was Fred's favorite and, unable to stay in an empty house, he enlisted as a volunteer in India.

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. main character whose Belgian private detective Hercule Poirot later became the hero of numerous novels by the writer. (Poirot dies in one of latest novels Christie "Curtain" (1975)).

In 1930, a new character appeared in the novel Murder at the Vicar's House - a lover of private investigation, the shrewd 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 also "The Baghdad Meeting" (1957), " What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw" (1957). Of her late novels, Dark of the Night (1968), Halloween Party (1969) and Gates of Destiny (1973) stand out.

Christie also performed successfully as a playwright - 16 of her plays were staged in London, some were made into films. The plays The 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, enjoy great success.

In 1974 the last public speaking writers at the premiere of the film version of "Murder on the Orient Express".

Christie was awarded the Order british empire II degree.

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 most famous writers of detective fiction in the world, and her books are the most published after the Bible and the writings of Shakespeare. Agatha Christie's books have been translated into over 100 languages.

In 2005, an unknown manuscript of Agatha Christie was discovered by a specialist in the work of the writer John Curran in her attic. 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 found 27 cassettes in the pantry 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 home on Greenway Manor has been opened to the public. 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, the house itself underwent a massive renovation.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources