Christie Agatha

Agatha Christie, born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller (Torquay, September 15, 1890-Wallingford, January 12, 1976), was a British writer and playwright specialized in in the police genre, for whose work he gained international recognition. Throughout his career, he published 66 detective novels, 6 romance novels and 14 short stories —under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott—, as well as to venture as a playwright in works such as The Mousetrap or Testigo de Cargo.

Born into an upper-middle-class family, she received a private education until her teens and studied at various institutes in Paris. While working as a nurse during World War I, she wrote her first novel, The Mysterious Case of Styles (1920), where he first introduced the character of detective Hercule Poirot. Other creations included Miss Marple, and Tommy and Tuppence Beresford.

In 1914, she married Archibald Christie, whom she divorced in 1928. In 1926, affected by a supposed depression, she mysteriously disappeared after her car was found abandoned on the side of the road. She was found eleven days later under a possible amnesia picture, in a hotel under the name of a lover of her husband.In 1930, she married the archaeologist Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied for long periods of time on trips from it to Iraq and Syria. His stays inspired several of his later novels such as Murder in Mesopotamia (1936), Death on the Nile (1936) and Appointment with Death (1938), many of which were adapted for stage and screen with wide acceptance. In 1971, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. She died of natural causes in 1976.

With between two and four billion copies of her works sold, Christie is considered the best-selling novelist of all time, and, along with William Shakespeare, the first or second female author to do so (albeit with twice as many works). According to the Index Translationum, she is the single most translated author, with editions in at least 103 languages. In 2013, her work The Assassination of Roger Ackroyd was chosen as the best crime novel of all time by 600 members of the Crime Writers Association.

Biography

Early Years

Agatha Christie in her childhood.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890 into an upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, South West England. Her mother, Clara Boehmer, originally from Belfast, was born in 1854 as the Only daughter of Captain Frederick Boehmer and Mary Ann West, a marriage that also had four sons, one of whom died young. Captain Boehmer died in a riding accident while staying in Jersey in April 1863, leaving Mary Ann to raise her children alone. Because of her poor financial situation, she sent her daughter Clara to live in West Sussex with her aunt Margaret Miller, married since 1863 to an American millionaire, Nathaniel Frary Miller. There she met her future husband, Frederick Alvah Miller, an American stockbroker and son of her stepfather. Mr. Miller was considered pleasant and kind by his close entourage and soon developed a loving relationship with Clara, whom he married in April. 1878. The couple had three children, Agatha Mary Clarissa, Margaret "Madge" Frary (1879-1950) and Louis "Monty" Montant Miller (1880-1929). Agatha was born in a Torquay villa called 'Ashfield', bought by her mother.

Christie noted as an adult that her childhood was "very happy" and that she had grown up surrounded by strong and independent women. Her life alternated between her home in Devonshire and the residences of her grandmother and aunts in Ealing, West End and some parts of southern Europe, where her family spent the winter holidays. Nominally a Christian, she was raised in a household of esoteric beliefs and, like her siblings, believed that her mother Clara was a psychic with extrasensory perceptions. Parents insisted that their daughter receive a home education and took it upon themselves to teach her to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. Although her mother believed that children should not learn to read until the age of eight, Agatha herself learned at four. She was also instructed about music and learned to play instruments like the guitar and mandolin.

She was a voracious reader from an early age and among her favorite books were children's books by Mrs. Molesworth, including The Adventures of Herr Baby (1881), Christmas Tree Land (1897) and The Magic Nuts (1898). He also read the work of Edith Nesbit, especially such titles as The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1903) and The Railway Children (1906). Growing up, she began to read surreal verses by Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.Although she spent a lot of time with her pets, much of her childhood was spent alone and isolated from other children. Despite this, Christie managed to bond with a group of girls in Torquay, noting that "one of the greatest moments of my life" was her appearance in a youth opera production of Gilbert and Sullivan, The Yeomen of the Guard, in which she played the heroine, Fairfax, in the company of the other young women.

His father was often ill and suffered a series of heart attacks until he died in November 1901 at the age of 55. His death left the family devastated and with an uncertain financial future. Agatha and her mother continued to live together in her home in Torquay, while Madge moved to Cheadle Hall with her new husband and Monty joined the army, later being posted to South Africa, where he fought in the World War of the Boers. Agatha would later state that her father's death, which occurred when she was eleven, marked the end of her childhood. In 1902, Agatha began receiving a formal education at Miss Guyer's Girls' School in Torquay but He found it difficult to adapt to the disciplinary regime. In 1905, she was transferred to the city of Paris, where she studied at three schools, Mademoiselle Cabernet, Les Marroniers, and Miss Dryden's.

Beginnings in Literature and World War I

Upon returning to her city in 1910, she discovered that her mother was ill and the two decided to spend time together in the warmer part of Cairo, so they stayed for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel. It was there that he visited ancient Egyptian monuments such as the Great Pyramid of Giza but showed no interest at the time in archeology and Egyptology which became a relevant aspect of his work years later. Returning to Britain, he continued his activities. writing and performing amateur theater, even collaborating during the production of a play, The Blue Beard of Unhappiness, with a group of friends. Some of her early works were published but she Christie decided not to focus on this task as a future professional.

While recovering in bed from an illness, he wrote his first short story, The House of Beauty, which consisted of around 6,000 words about the world of "madness and dreams". Biographer Janet Morgan later commented that despite "stylistic lapses", the story was "compelling". Most of her later stories, notably The Call of Wings and The Little Lonely God, illustrated his interest in spiritualism and the paranormal. Several publications rejected the first submissions of her written by her although some were reversed and later released with new titles.

Christie then published his first novel, Snow Upon the Desert, in Cairo, based on his recent experiences in that city. However, she found herself distraught after several publishers refused to publish it. Clara suggested that she seek advice from a family friend, the writer Eden Philpotts, who encouraged her to continue her work and sent her an introduction to his literary agent, Hughes Massie. However, Massie also rejected Snow Upon the Desert and suggested the preparation of a second novel.

In search of a husband, she had brief unsuccessful relationships with four estranged men until she met Archibald "Archie" Christie (1889-1962)—a Royal Flying Corps aviator—at a ball given by the Cliffords in Chudleigh, 19 km from Torquay. Archie had been born in India as the son of a civil judge. The two fell quickly in love and, upon learning that he would be posted to Farnborough, Archie proposed to her and Agatha accepted the proposal. In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, her husband was sent to France to fight the German forces. Agatha also served as a wartime aid, joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), where she treated wounded soldiers at Torquay Hospital. In her performance as a nurse, a profession she defined as "one of the most rewarding jobs anyone can have", she dedicated 3,400 hours of unpaid work between October 1914 and December 1916, while as a hospital dispenser for the Red Cross, he earned £16 a year until the end of his service in September 1918. His work there had some influence on his work as many of the murders he recounted were carried out with poisons. Archie was eventually sent from He returned to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in the Air Ministry and the two settled in a flat at 5 Northwick Terrace, North West London.

First novels

Archibald (izq.) and Christie in 1922 during the British Empire Exhibition.

After reading The Lady in White and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins as well as Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories, Christie became a fan of detective stories. This is how, in 1920, he wrote his first detective novel, The Mysterious Case of Styles, where he presented detective Hercule Poirot portrayed as a former Belgian police officer who had taken refuge in Great Britain after the German invasion. in Belgium, known for his "magnificent whiskers" and egg-shaped head. Christie was influenced in creating the character by Belgian refugees settled in Torquay.

The novel was not accepted by six publishing companies, including Hodder and Stoughton and Methuen. However, John Lane at The Bodley Head pondered the petition for several months, then offered to publish it if Christie would tweak the ending. After agreeing to the request, he signed a contract that he later perceived as unfair, and 2,000 copies were sold. According to The Times Literary Supplement, "The only fault with this story is that it's almost too witty."... Said to be the author's first book and... a detective story in which the reader would not be able to locate the criminal." In August 1919, Christie had given birth to their daughter Rosalind at Ashfield, where the couple spent much of their time. Archie left the Air Force towards the end of the war and began working in the London financial system at relatively low wages.

Christie's second novel, The Mysterious Mr. Brown (1922), published by The Bodley Head, featured a new detective pair, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. A third novel, Murder on the Golf Course (1923), again featured Poirot as the protagonist, as did the short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of Sketch magazine. The Times Literary Supplement compared Poirot's methods of detection to those of Sherlock Holmes and concluded favorably that the book "offers the reader an engrossing mystery of an unusual kind". For its part, The New York Times Book Review noted that "here is a very good detective story that can be warmly recommended to those who like that type of fiction." The couple left their daughter Rosalind with the mother and Agatha's sister later traveled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii to promote the British Empire Exhibition. At Waikiki they became some of the first British to surf.

Disappearance

Journalistic article announcing the apparition of Christie.

In late 1926, Archie revealed that he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and filed for divorce. On December 3, 1926, Christie and Archibald had an argument and he left his Berkshire residence to spend the weekend with his mistress in Surrey. That same night, around 21:45 GMT, Christie disappeared after leaving a letter to his secretary informing him that he would be in Yorkshire.

His car, a Morris Cowley, was later found at Newlands Corner by a lake near Guildford, along with items of clothing and an expired driving licence. The incident caused a severe commotion among his followers and attracted the attention of the public press. The Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, lobbied the police and one newspaper offered a £100 reward. More than a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers and several aircraft raked and investigated the rural area. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle even gave one of Christie's gloves to a medium so that he could perceive her, and Dorothy L. Sayers visited the Surrey house, which later became the scene of her book Unnatural Death.

Christie's disappearance made the front page of The New York Times and despite an intense search, she was not found until eleven days after the fact. On December 14, 1926, was identified as a guest at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, where she was registered as Teresa Neele—the surname of her husband's mistress—from Cape Town. The writer did not know why she was there and she was also unable to recognize her husband when he came to meet her, so she had to receive psychiatric treatment in Harley Street.

Christie never gave an explanation for her disappearance. Although two doctors at the time diagnosed her with psychogenic fugue, opinion as to the reasons for her disappearance remains divided. One version indicates that she suffered a nervous breakdown caused by her propensity for depression, aggravated by her mother's death earlier in the year and her husband's infidelity. Public reaction was mainly negative as many believed she had faked her disappearance as a publicity stunt or to make him believe to the police that her husband had killed her.

Author Jared Cage interviewed multiple witnesses and relatives of the writer for his biographical book, Agatha Christie and the 11 Days Missing, with a large number suggesting that the writer staged her disappearance intentionally to embarrass Archibald without imagining the public notoriety that the event would take. Michael Apted's 1979 film Agatha, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Dustin Hoffman and Timothy Dalton, recreated a Christie planning her suicide to frame her husband's lover for "murder." ». Then, an American journalist, played by Hoffman, follows her closely and stops her plan.

The Christies divorced in 1928, Archie soon after married Nancy Neele, and Agatha received custody of their daughter Rosalind. During her marriage, she published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a series of magazine stories. Her mother and her daughter moved to the Canary Islands, where she finished writing The Mystery of the Blue Train . In late 1928, Agatha wrote her first novel under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread, which is not in the detective genre but is a fictional work about a composer forced to work for financial reasons.

Initial success and second marriage

Christie's residence in Greenway.

His first major success came with the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in 1926. The novel, which sold 5,000 copies in its first print run, received widespread feedback and controversy for the way it changes the traditional rules of the detective story.

In 1928, the publication of The Sittaford Mystery drew a notable amount of criticism. The Times Literaty Supplement took a positive stance, noting in its May 3, 1928 issue, that "the reader will not be disappointed when the distinguished Belgian, for psychological reasons, refuses to suspect the arrested husband and act on the suggestion of an ugly girl who constantly mocks her absurd mother, constructs deductions almost from thin air, supports them with a wide variety of negative evidence [...]". Robert Barnard said that it is "the Christie's least favorite story, for which she fought with him before and after his disappearance. The international context makes for good mixed reading but there are [...] some deleterious influences from thrillers". conducted a series of investigations following the surprise murder of landlord Joseph Trevelyan while some of his tenants were communing with spirits.

Persuaded over dinner, Christie left for Baghdad and from there traveled to the archaeological site of Ur, where she forged a friendship with dig leaders Leonard and Katharine Wooley. She was invited back the following year and met archaeologist Max Mallowan (1904-1978), whom she defined as a "thin, dark, young and very calm man". After a brief courtship, they were married in September 1930 at the Isle of Skye and they honeymooned around Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. Their marriage, unlike the previous one, was fruitful and lasted until the writer's death in 1976. Both used to spend their summers in Ashfield with Rosalind, Christmas with Mallowan's brother's family at Abney Hall, late autumn working on archaeological digs – mainly in Syria and Iraq – and the rest of the year in London and his country home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

His travels with Mallowan had a major influence on several of his novels set in the Middle East. After a stay in Turkey and Baghdad, her character Miss Marple gained prominence in her novel Death at the Vicarage, staged at the Embassy Theater in West End, London. Other works —such as And There Were None Left— takes place around Torquay, where he grew up. Her 1934 novel, Murder on the Orient Express, was written at the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, a building that keeps the room where Christie stayed intact as a tribute to the author. Greenway, Devon, purchased by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the National Trust. Christie often visited the residence of her brother-in-law James Watts at Abney Hall, which was of great influence on the writer to such an extent that she based herself in that place to make at least two literary productions, Christmas Pudding for the collection of short stories of the same name and the novel After the Funeral.

World War II

During World War II, while her husband took a job in Cairo, Christie worked at University College London Pharmacy, where she gained further knowledge of poisons in addition to those she had amassed during her work at the dispensary. Her studies of her chemicals were often reflected in her histories published in the postwar years. Chief pharmacist Harold Davis, later transferred to the UK Ministry of Health, informed him of the use of thallium as a poison, and in The Pale Horse Mystery, published in 1961, Christie made use of it. for the method of execution of the victims, to which he added indications such as hair loss. Her description of thallium poisoning was so accurate that she curiously helped solve a medical case that baffled specialists.

Circa 1941 and 1942, British intelligence agency MI5 investigated Agatha Christie after discovering that The Mystery of Sans Souci related a story based on the manhunt for two top spy agents Adolf Hitler's secrets in the UK. One of his characters, Major Bletchley, is introduced as a former Indian Army officer who claims to know the secrets of the UK's war effort. The fears of the MI5 agency that Christie knew of Hitler's plans were so great that they decided to investigate her contacts, especially the cryptographer Dilly Knox, due to the suspicion that the writer's knowledge of the matter came from him. The rumors were dispelled when Christie confessed to Knox that Major Bletchley was simply the name of "one of my least lovable characters". Christie was surprised to note that the book's publication in the United States was delayed until that country joined the allies in the war. The war period was the most prestigious moment of Christie's career. Some of his most outstanding works during that time were Five Little Pigs, Ten Little Blacks, The Case of the Anonymous, A Corpse in the library and Evil under the Sun. times.

Later Life and Death

Christie's tomb.

In late 1946, the use of her pen name, Mary Westmacott, was seriously questioned by a reviewer for Away From You This Spring, much to the disappointment of the author, who had enjoyed the freedom to write without the pressure of being Agatha Christie. In the early 1950s, Christie slowed down her pace of life and wrote less assiduously, although she devoted much of her time to stage productions. Her greatest stage success, The Mousetrap (1952), celebrated thirty years of performances in 1982 at the St. Martin Theater in the West End and reached 12,483 performances. By then, the work had been seen in London alone by more than five million people, which meant the sale of 252 tons of programs. However, it was also presented in a remarkable number of British cities and 41 countries.

In 1955, Agatha Christie Limited was founded in order to preserve the rights to most of its publications. The organization received negative reviews as questions were raised regarding its purpose and the desirability of an author needing a business to take care of your commercial interests. In 1968, Booker Books, a subsidiary of the Booker-McConnell agribusiness conglomerate, acquired 51% of the shares, although the company later increased the percentage to 64%. In 1998, Brooker sold his shares to Chorion, a company whose portfolio includes the literary properties of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.

Christie was honored for her literary works when in 1950 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In addition, she received the first Grand Master Award from the Royal Society of Literature. of Mystery Writers five years later. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956, the year before she became president of the Detection Club. In 1961, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter and in 1971, Queen Elizabeth II promoted her to Dame Commander.

From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health deteriorated considerably although she continued to work. His last public appearance was in 1974, when he attended the premiere of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express starring Albert Finney. The last story with Poirot, Curtain, was published in December 1975, while the last book with Miss Marple, A Sleeping Crime, was released in October 1976; both were written in the 1940s. In January 1976, Christie suffered from a severe flu-like condition and, as his physical condition weakened, he granted the copyright of The Mousetrap to his grandson Some Canadian researchers have expressed the opinion that Christie may have suffered from Alzheimer's disease or senile dementia in his later years based on studies carried out.

Christie died of natural causes on 12 January 1976 at the age of 85, at his Winterbrook House residence in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. His remains were interred in the churchyard of St Mary's Parish Church in Cholsey. Widowed, her husband married colleague Barbara Hastings Parker, who died just two years later, in 1978, and was buried at Christie's side. Christie's only daughter, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, died on 28 October 2004 at same age and from the same causes as his mother. His grandson, Mathew Prichard, born in 1943, inherited the rights to some works from his grandmother and is currently Chairman of Agatha Christie Limited.

Literary production

His room at the Pera Palace Hotel, where he wrote Murder at the Orient Express.

Christie published 66 crime novels plus plays, six romance novels, short stories, two autobiographies, two books of poetry, and one children's book.

His play The Mousetrap is the longest running show in the world. It premiered in 1952 and was frequently performed at the West End's St. Martin's Theatre. Another of his works, Witness for the Prosecution , was successful although it was not as popular as The Mousetrap . On the other hand, Christie wrote two autobiographies —published after her death—, one that summarizes her professional and private life until 1965, and another that recounts her experiences in the Middle East with her husband.

One of his lesser-known facets was poetry, a genre to which he devoted himself in his teenage years and during World War I. The first collection of his poems and ballads, El camino de los sueños , published in 1924, is significant for his followers as it contains the character of Harlequin and others from the Italian Commedia dell'arte. A second collection of poetry was published in 1973 under two sections, one with verses from 1924 and the other with 27 compositions focusing on places Christie had visited, childhood nostalgia, art, and beauty.

She also published six romance novels under the pen name Mary Westmacott, the first in 1930 and the last in 1956. She used that name because of her introverted nature and her difficulty expressing emotions and feelings. The first two works of this genre had an autobiographical tone.

Influences

From an early age, Christie became a reader of Walter Scott, John Milton, Alexandre Dumas, Jane Austen and Arthur Conan Doyle, claiming at the same time that it would be effective in forgetting the "horrors of war". Dickens, she was convinced that she would be able to write stories like Doyle's. Agatha and her sister Madge had been reading her detective stories from the age of eight. Doyle's influences on Christie were presented in the writer's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, where you can appreciate some similarities between Holmes and Poirot. Although Conan Doyle was the most influential author on her work, Edgar Allan Poe, Anna Katherine Green and G.K. Chesterton were also to a lesser extent.

Agatha once told her sister Madge that she thought she could write a detective story, to which Madge replied that she couldn't. After reading The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gastón Leroux, as she confessed in her autobiography, she found herself "fired by determination" to write a detective story and that is how she made her first literary production of that genre.. Christie acknowledged the fact that novice writers cannot refrain from copying the writing style of another writer they admire at the time, and noted that adopting another author's style always leads to a negative end result simply because of the lack of of originality. According to her Christie, the influence of admiration diminishes with time and she admitted the importance of writers having their own writing style.

I've learned that I am, that I can do the things I can do.

Agatha Christie

Plot and plot

Christie's first steps in writing were really difficult and she often thought her ideas weren't good. On one occasion, she came to comment that "there is no pain like this. You're in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking around or throwing yourself on a sofa, feeling like you're going to cry."

Christie used a notebook in which she jotted down initial plot ideas along with poison concepts and newspaper articles related to her plot. At other times, her ideas came spontaneously.Many of her characters were created after observing people in a restaurant and, rarely, acquaintances of her family. Major Ernest Belcher, for example, was actually a retired schoolteacher and the employer of Archie Christie, her first husband. Nancy Astor, the first woman to serve as a Member of Parliament, appeared as Lady Westholme in Appointment with Death, while Katharine, the wife of Leonard Woolley, an archaeologist who worked with Max Mallowan, appeared as Mrs. Leidner in Murder in Mesopotamia. She also decided to portray herself in one of her stories through the character of mystery writer Ariadne Olivier.

In his autobiography, Christie said that the great thing about writing detective stories is that there are many kinds — passionate, intricate crime thriller, and light-hearted thriller. Regarding the detective stories of passion, she stated that they are intended to “help save innocence. Because it's the innocence that matters, not the guilt."

The police novel was the story of persecution. It was also largely a history of morality.

Agatha Christie

About Diez nigritos, he admitted that the “idea had fascinated him. I wrote the book after a great deal of planning and was satisfied with the end result. It was clear, simple, puzzling, and yet it had a perfectly reasonable explanation." Though he liked to vary the established form of the detective story—one of his early books, The Death of Roger Ackroyd, is renowned for its particular denouement—he placed an emphasis on "playing fair with the reader" while Be sure to offer in your stories all the information to solve the enigma. The structure of the plot, based on the tradition of the enigma to discover, is always similar and its development is a function of psychological observation. One of the main characteristics of Christie's detective prose is that his stories develop in what It is called the whodunit, which allows the reader to test hypotheses and, in short, try to decipher the identity of the culprit before finishing reading the story. The concentration of his characters in a single space is a convention of the detective theme, which Christie took to an extreme of isolation in Ten Little Little Boys (1939). In some of his stories, the plot of Mystery is displaced by the desire to talk about the problems of his time, as in Passenger to Frankfurt (1970).

Literary execution

Agatha Christie described the writing process for her early novels as follows:

Charlotte [her secretary] and I sat one in front of another, she with her notebook and pencil. I looked sadly at the chimney shelf and began to profess some tentative phrases. They sounded awful. I couldn't say more than a word without hesitation and stopping. Nothing I said sounded natural. We've persisted for an hour...

Agatha Christie.

After these experiences, Christie found that she felt more comfortable with regular handwriting or typing, and argued that there must be an "economy of writing" in detective stories. The author did not have a place of her own to write until she acquired her residence in Sheffield Terrace in London, as up to that time she used to handwrite her stories in different rooms and then transcribe the drafts by typewriter. to write.

Christie once wrote two books at once, A Corpse in the Library and The Mystery of Sans Souci, claiming that such a task would keep her "fresher." ». Although the two stories were written during World War II, Christie herself stated that she had no problem writing during the war since she used to "disconnect" from the outside world and focus on her novels.

Characters

Poirot Hercules Statue in Belgium.

The writer's first book, The Mysterious Case of Styles, was published in 1920 and featured Hercule Poirot, who featured in 33 of her novels and 54 short stories. Another of her most recognizable characters, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Tuesday Club, a 1927 short story, and Christie was based on her grandmother, her friends, and her aunts. of her to design it.

Like Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie grew increasingly tired of his character Poirot. In fact, in the late 1930s, he confided in his personal diary that he found his creation "insufferable" and by the 1960s, he felt it was an "egocentric influence". However, unlike Conan Doyle, she resisted leaving her character when she was still very popular, claiming that she always defined herself as "an artist whose job it was to produce what the public liked".

He never brought together his two main characters, Poirot and Marple, in the same novel. In a rediscovered recording released in 2008, the author expressed her motives: "I'm sure they wouldn't like to meet. Hercule Poirot. Times after her last appearance in Telón in 1975. After the success of that book, the writer gave permission to publish A Sleeping Murder at the beginning of 1976 but died before publication.

Analyzing her work, the newspaper La Nación commented: «Jane Marple's adventures generally take place in country houses, among irreproachable citizens, with boring lives; Small town intrigues, muted enmities, gossip, small sins of the past are charged with meaning when crime reaches the town and awakens it. Poirot's adventures, on the other hand, often have an air of exoticism. Miss Marple is busy catching criminals in the interior of England; Poirot, in the confines of the Empire".

Christie created other characters as well, even before the appearance of Poirot and Marple. Colonel Race, a Secret Service agent, was introduced alongside the Beresford couple in the 1920s and appeared in four novels between 1924 and 1945. Superintendent Battle figured in five others, between 1925 and 1944. Tommy and Tuppence were included in four novels and a series of short stories released between 1922 and 1973. In the 1930s, Christie devised Harley Quin and his partner, Mr. Satterthwaite, Parker Pyne, and Ariadne Oliver. Quin and his colleague, like Pyne, appeared only in short stories, but Oliver had a hand in six novels alongside Poirot over four decades.

Archaeology

Christie always had an interest in archaeology:

The appeal of the past came to me to hold on. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its golden glow, through the sand. The care of raising pots and objects from the earth fills me with a longing to be archaeologist on my own.

Agatha Christie

On a trip to the excavations of Ur in 1930, she met her future husband, Max Mallowan, a distinguished archaeologist whose fame as an author outweighed her former. Before becoming engaged to Mallowan, Christie had had no significant contact with him. archeology, but after they were married they both made sure to go to places where they could work together.

Many years ago, when I once sadly told Max that it was a pity that I would not have approached archaeology when I was a child, in order to be better informed about the subject, he said, “Do you not realize that at this time you know more about prehistoric ceramics than any other woman in England?”

Agatha Christie

While accompanying her husband on innumerable archaeological trips—spent up to 3-4 months in Syria and Iraq at the excavation sites of Ur, Nineveh, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud—Christie not only wrote novels and short stories but also collaborated in the work of archaeological sites, more specifically in matters related to the restoration and classification of ancient samples, which included cleaning and conservation of delicate pieces of ivory, the reconstruction of ceramics, taking photos of the excavations, the site and its results, as well as taking notes from the field.

In order not to influence the funding of archaeological excavations, Christie always paid her own living, room and travel expenses, and supported excavations as an anonymous patron. After World War II, she chronicled her stay in Syria entitled Come Tell Me How You Live (Come and tell me how you live), where he recounted anecdotes, memories and funny episodes.

From November 2001 to March 2002, the British Museum held an exhibition called Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia, which presented little-known aspects of Agatha Christie's life and the influences of archeology in his work.

Legacy and representations

Christie's bust in London.

As one of the most representative exponents of the detective genre, she was given the nickname of the "queen of crime". The Guinness Book of Records described Christie as the best-selling novelist of all the times. Her novels have sold nearly four million copies and her literary works rank third on the list of the most published books in the world behind Shakespeare and the Bible. According to the Index Translationum, Christie is the most translated single author with editions translated into approximately 103 languages. in the most sold mystery story in the world and in one of the best-selling books of all time. In 2013, The murder of Roger Ackroyd was chosen as the best crime novel of all time by 600 writers from the Crime Writers Association. The Mousetrap, one of his most successful plays, is the longest-running show in history. It was presented at the Ambassador Theater in London on November 25, 1952 and has continued to run since 2012 after more than 25,000 performances.

In Spain, his collections were extremely popular since the 1940s, especially the editions made by Editorial Molino in its Biblioteca Oro collection. In 2011, the Madrid writer Ana Campoy published the children's collection The Adventures of Alfred &; Agatha , in which she recreated Christie's childhood through detective cases alongside Alfred Hitchcock also in her childhood.

Author Margery Allingham wrote in 1950 that Christie had entertained "more people for more hours at a time than almost any other writer of his generation", while El País reported that, despite all possible criticism, the The work of the "prototypical lady of crime [...] has resounding virtues: the general harmony of the story and the taste for brain games".

Most of his novels and short stories have been adapted for film, television and theater, some on more than one occasion, such as Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. One of the exceptions was a 1979 film titled Agatha by Michael Apted, in which the direct figure of the writer was taken and an attempt was made to unravel her mysterious disappearance over several days in the 1920s. Poirot and other detectives such as Miss Marple have also appeared in numerous films, radio shows and stage performances.

Deadly Suggestion, a 1937 mystery drama directed by Rowland V. Lee, and Ten Little Blacks, a 1945 thriller directed by René Clair, were the Christie's first major adaptations. In 1957, Billy Wilder directed the film Witness for the Prosecution with Tyrone Power, Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich, based on his play of the same name, which was followed by The 4:50 Train (1962, by George Pollock), whose success began a series of films centered on the Marple cases starring actress Margaret Rutherford. Other adaptations were titled Endless Night (1971), a cycle shot with Hollywood figures and based on Murder on the Orient Express (1974, Sidney Lumet), Death on the Nile (1979, John Guillermin), The Broken Mirror (1980, directed by Guy Hamilton and starring Elizabeth Taylor), Guilty of Innocence (1983, Desmond Davies) and Appointment with Death (1988, by Michael Winner).

Starting in 1982, three series for television were shot, one of three films about Miss Marple with Helen Hayes, another about Hercule Poirot with Peter Ustinov in the role of the character and the last one with Joan Hickson in the role of Marple. Among other adaptations, a British television series entitled Marriage of Hounds from 1982 stands out. There is also an anime series entitled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, the which consists of 39 episodes of 25 minutes each in which the plots of some of his books are recreated. One of the most notable rock bands from the Soviet Union and Russia is called Agatha Christie and was active between 1987 and 2010.