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Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976)
Category: English Literature Born: September 15, 1890
Torquay, Devonshire, England Died: January 12, 1976
Wallingford, Oxforshire, England
Related authors:
Edgar Allan Poe, Georges Simenon, John Buchan, P. D. James, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Saturday Evening Post
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| 7/7/1930 |
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Spirit-World
On this day in 1930, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died, at the age of seventy-one. Although Conan Doyle continued to write Sherlock Holmes stories throughout his last decade, many agreed with T. S. Eliot that the unstumpable hero showed evidence of "mental decay"; many others thought that Conan Doyle, the nation's most beloved rationalist, had himself gone "stark, staring mad on the subject of the dead." |
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| 7/7/1930 |
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The Spirits of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Throughout his life Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote prolifically and in almost all genres, but by his last decade spiritualism had become his almost exclusive passion -- endless pamphlets and letters, seven books, and lectures on most continents. The London Sunday Express spoke for many when it wondered if the nation's most beloved logician had gone "stark, staring mad on the subject of the dead." |
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| 11/25/2006 |
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Agatha Christie's Longest-Running Mysteries
On this day in 2002, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap begins its second half-century of continuous presentation. As enduring is the tale surrounding her marriage break-up and mysterious disappearance in 1926. This ended happily with a second marriage to the prominent archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. . . . |
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BBC Interviews
Find two interviews in which the author shares her excitement over the fiftieth anniversary of The Mousetrap, and discusses why she started writing and how she goes about it:
"I put it all down to the fact that I never had any education. ... But I found myself making up stories and acting the different parts. And there's nothing like boredom to make you write. ... Well, that's how it began, and since that time I've written something like 55 books and half-a-dozen plays. I do find that one's friends are curious about the way one works. 'What is your method?' they want to know. Well the disappointing truth is that I haven't much method...." |  | Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection
An educational website for fans of mystery and detection stories offers information and commentary on selected stories, and an explanation their place within the genre and in relation to other writers. It also offers overview of her life and career, commentary on Miss Marples and Hercule Poirot, and a brief review of films derived from her works, including "The Witness for the Prosecution," and "Murder on the Orient Express."
"Some of Christie's late 1930's books stress a theme of reconciliation, especially within a family. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938) ends with the members of the family learning to accept each other, and end their suspicions of one another. Similar themes are found in Appointment With Death (1938). These books attempt to function on two levels: a literal look at families, and as an allegorical plea for the 'family' of nations of Europe to reconcile, and avoid the war which everyone could see was looming. Later, Christie's spy thriller They Came to Baghdad (1951) will involve an effort at East-West reconciliation. Christie's stories work on a personal level. Her pleas for non-violence and learning to accept other people are cogent and touching. However, the political allegories in these novels are naive. Christie has no understanding of totalitarianism, either Nazi or Communist, and all the evils it brings." | |
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The TinL masthead features photography by
Natasha D'Schommer
, and the book art featured is by Jim Rosenau.
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