And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (born Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays.
15 December 1926, announcing Christie had been foundIn late 1926, asked Agatha for a divorce. He had fallen in love with Nancy Neele, who had been a friend of, director of the British Empire Mission, on the promotional tour a few years earlier. On 3 December 1926, the Christies quarrelled, and Archie left their house, which they named Styles, in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress in Godalming, Surrey. At around 9:45 pm, Christie disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire.
Her car, a, was found at Newlands Corner, perched above a chalk quarry, with an expired driving licence and clothes.The disappearance caused a public outcry. The home secretary, pressured police, and a newspaper offered a £100 reward.
Over a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes scoured the rural landscape. Gave a one of Christie's gloves to find her. Crime novelist visited the house in Surrey, and used the scenario in her book. Christie's disappearance was featured on the front page of The New York Times. Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for 10 days. On 14 December 1926, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the ) in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Teresa Neele (the surname of her husband's lover) from Cape Town.Christie's autobiography makes no reference to her disappearance.
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Two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from amnesia (see ), yet opinion remains divided as to why she disappeared. Her biographer Laura Thompson suggested that Christie let this out in the six novels that she wrote between 1930 and 1956 under the nom de plume Mary Westmacott, in a style quite different from her regular detective stories. She was known to be in a depressed state from literary overwork, her mother's death earlier that year, and her husband's infidelity. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or an attempt to frame her husband for murder.The 1979 film features a disclaimer in the opening credits stating that what follows is an imaginary solution to an authentic mystery.
The film starred and as Agatha and Archie, and depicts Christie planning suicide in such a way as to frame her husband's mistress for her 'murder'. An American reporter, played by, follows her closely and stops the plan. Christie's heirs unsuccessfully sued to prevent the film's distribution. The author Jared Cade interviewed numerous witnesses and relatives for his sympathetic biography Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, revised in 2011. He provided substantial evidence to suggest that she planned the event to embarrass her husband, never anticipating the resulting escalated melodrama.The Christies divorced in 1928, and Archie married Nancy Neele.
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Agatha retained custody of their daughter Rosalind and the Christie name for her writing. During their marriage, she published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines. Second marriage and later life. Agatha Christie with Max Mallowan in, 1930sChristie frequently used settings that were familiar to her for her stories.
She often accompanied Mallowan on his archaeological expeditions, and her travels with him contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as ) were set in and around, where she was raised.
Christie's 1934 novel was written in the in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author.The in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the. Christie often stayed at, Cheshire, owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts, basing at least two stories there: a short story ' in the story collection of the same name, and the novel. 'Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all its servants and grandeur being woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Chimneys, Stoneygates, and other houses in her stories are mostly Abney in various forms.' During the Second World War, Christie worked in the pharmacy at, London, where she acquired a knowledge of poisons that she put to good use in her post-war crime novels.
For example, the use of as a poison was suggested to her by UCH Chief Pharmacist Harold Davis (later appointed Chief Pharmacist at the UK Ministry of Health), and in, published in 1961, she employed it to dispatch a series of victims, the first clue to the murder method coming from the victims' loss of hair. So accurate was her description of thallium poisoning that on at least one occasion it helped solve a case that was baffling doctors. Cresswell PlaceChristie lived in, first in Cresswell Place and later in Sheffield Terrace. Both properties are now marked. In 1934, she and Max Mallowan purchased Winterbrook House in, a hamlet adjoining the small market town of, then within the bounds of and in.This was their main residence for the rest of their lives and the place where Christie did most of her writing. This house, too, bears a blue plaque.
Christie led a quiet life despite being known in the town of Wallingford, where she was for many years President of the local. Blue plaque, 58 Sheffield Terrace, LondonAround 1941–42, the British intelligence agency investigated Christie after a character called Major Bletchley appeared in her 1941 thriller, which was about a hunt for a pair of deadly in wartime England.
Was afraid that Christie had a spy in Britain's top-secret codebreaking centre,. The agency's fears were allayed when Christie told her friend, the codebreaker, 'I was stuck there on my way by train from Oxford to London and took revenge by giving the name to one of my least lovable characters.' In honour of her many literary works, she was appointed (CBE) in the. The next year, she became the President of the. In the, she was promoted to (DBE), three years after her husband had been for his archaeological work in 1968.
They were one of the few married couples where both partners were honoured in their own right. From 1968, owing to her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be Lady Mallowan. Winterbrook HouseDame Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her home Winterbrook House which was located in,.
At the time of her death Winterbrook was still a part of the parish of. She is buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey, having chosen the plot for their final resting place with her husband Sir Max some ten years before she died. The simple funeral service was attended by about 20 newspaper and TV reporters, some having travelled from as far away as South America. Thirty wreaths adorned Dame Agatha's grave, including one from the cast of her long-running play The Mousetrap and one sent 'on behalf of the multitude of grateful readers' by the Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers.She was survived by her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan (1904-1978); by her only child, Rosalind Christie Hicks (1919–2004), and by her only grandchild, Mathew T. Max Mallowan, who remarried in 1977, died in 1978 at age 74. He was interred next to Agatha Christie Mallowan. Agatha Christie's estate and subsequent ownership of works Christie had set up a, Agatha Christie Limited, to hold the rights to her works, and c.
1959 transferred her 278-acre home, to her daughter Rosalind. In 1968, when Christie was almost 80 years old, she sold a 51% stake in Agatha Christie Limited (and therefore the works it owned) to Booker Books (better known as ), a subsidiary of the food and transport Booker-McConnell (now ), the founder of the for literature, which later increased its stake to 64%. Agatha Christie Limited remains the owner of the worldwide rights for over 80 of Christie's novels and short stories, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films.After Christie's death in 1976, her remaining 36% share of the company was inherited by her daughter, Rosalind Hicks, who passionately preserved her mother's works, image, and legacy until her own death 28 years later. The family's share of the company allowed them to appoint 50% of the board and the, and thereby to retain a over new treatments, updated versions, and republications of her works.In 1993, Hicks founded the Agatha Christie Society and became its first president. In 2004 her in commented that Hicks had been 'determined to remain true to her mother's vision and to protect the integrity of her creations' and disapproved of ' activities. Upon Hicks's death on 28 October 2004, both the Society and the Greenway Estate passed to Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard.
After his parents' deaths, Prichard donated Greenway and its contents to the. The Society is now chaired and managed by Agatha Christie's great-grandson James Prichard.Christie's family and, including James Prichard, continue to own the remaining 36% stake in Agatha Christie Limited, and remain associated with the company. James Prichard became the company's in October 2015. The development of Christie's work continues apace. Mathew Prichard in his own right holds the copyright to some of his grandmother's later literary works (including ).In 1998, Booker sold a number of its non-food assets to focus on its core business.
As part of that, its shares in Agatha Christie Limited (at the time earning £2.1m annual revenue ) were sold for £10m to, a major international media company whose portfolio of well-known authors' works also included the literary estates of. In February 2012, some years after a, Chorion found itself in financial difficulties, and began to sell off its literary assets on the market.
The process included the sale of Chorion's 64% stake in Agatha Christie Limited to Acorn Media U.K. In 2014, acquired Acorn Media U.K., renamed it, and incorporated it as the RLJE UK development arm.
RLJ Entertainment Inc. Was founded by American entrepreneur.In late February 2014, media reports stated that the had acquired exclusive TV rights to Christie's works in the UK (previously associated with ) and made plans with Acorn's co-operation to air new productions for the 125th anniversary of Christie's birth in 2015. As part of that deal, the BBC broadcast and, both in 2015. Subsequent productions have included but plans to televise at Christmas 2017 were delayed due to controversy surrounding one of the cast members. The three-part adaptation aired in April 2018. A three-part adaptation of starring and began filming in June 2018 for later broadcast. Writings.
Memorial to Christie in central LondonChristie's first book, was published in 1920 and introduced the detective, who became a long-running character in Christie's works, appearing in 33 novels and 54 short stories., introduced in the short-story collection in 1927, was based on Christie's grandmother and her 'Ealing cronies'. Both Jane and Gran 'always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right.' : 422 Marple appeared in 12 novels and 20 stories.During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, and, intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Both books were sealed in a for over thirty years and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974. Christie became increasingly tired of Poirot, much as Sir had grown weary of his character. By the end of the 1930s, Christie wrote in her diary that she was finding Poirot 'insufferable', and by the 1960s she felt that he was 'an egocentric creep'.However, unlike Conan Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot.
She did marry off Poirot's companion in an attempt to trim her cast commitments.: 268In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, the Belgian detective's titles outnumber the Marple titles more than two to one. This is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in her career, while remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s. Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple.
In a recording discovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: 'Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady. Hercule Poirot – a professional sleuth – would not be at home at all in Miss Marple's world.' However, does feature both Hercule Poirot and the elderly bachelor Mr. Satterthwaite (confederate of Harley Quin).Poirot is the only fictional character to date to be given an obituary in, following the publication of Curtain. It appeared on the front page of the paper on 6 August 1975.Following the great success of Curtain, Christie gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976 but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple series—for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder although he is noted as having died in books published earlier.
It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died.In 2013, the Christie family gave their 'full backing' to the release of a new Poirot story, which was written by British author. Hannah later released a second Poirot mystery, in 2016 and in 2018.Formula and plot devices. This section needs additional citations for. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: – ( April 2016) Christie's reputation as 'The Queen of Crime' was built upon the large number of classic that she introduced, or for which she provided the most famous example. Christie built these tropes into what is now considered classic mystery structure: a murder is committed, there are multiple suspects who are all concealing secrets, and the detective gradually uncovers these secrets over the course of the story, discovering the most shocking twists towards the end. The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic.
The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself.—: 389Christie had a lifelong interest in archaeology. She met her second husband, a distinguished archaeologist, on a trip to the excavation site at in 1930. But her fame as an author far surpassed his fame in archaeology.
Prior to meeting Mallowan, Christie had not had any extensive brushes with archaeology, but once the two married, they made sure to only go to sites where they could work together. Christie accompanied Mallowan on countless archaeological trips, spending 3–4 months at a time in and at excavation sites at Ur,.