Who Was Agatha Christie?

by Micki Demby Kleinman

Prolific author Agatha Christie (née Miller) is the best-selling novelist of all time. The only works that outsell Christie are those of Shakespeare and the Bible. Since her first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Christie has sold over 2 billion copies of her books. In addition to writing 66 crime novels, Christie wrote 164 short stories, 30 plays, two autobiographies, and an additional six books under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Who was Agatha Christie, what was her life like, and how did she become one of the most successful authors of all time?

Born in 1890 in the United Kingdom, Agatha Miller was an independent, imaginative child, who taught herself to read by the age of five. She spent her childhood between England and France, attending a series of girls’ and boarding schools, and immersing herself in piano and singing lessons. At this time she was already often writing short stories. In 1914, Agatha Miller married Archibald Christie. During World War I, Agatha Christie worked as a wartime nurse, and later worked with pharmacists at the hospital dispensary. This job provided her with the extensive knowledge about chemicals and poisons that would later appear as “weapons” in her murder mysteries. Christie reportedly once said about her novels’ victims, “they can’t be poisoned every time, but I am happier when they are.” Around this time, Christie’s sister challenged her to write a crime novel where the reader would not be able to solve the mystery before the detective. This prompt, and the influx of Belgian refugees in the United Kingdom due to the war, inspired Christie to draft her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring retired Belgian policeman Hercule Poirot. The novel was rejected by publishers for a number of years, until the Bodley Head publishers took a chance on the new author. Following the publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920, Christie wrote and published a novel for each year in the decade, including her famous and successful The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, published in 1926.

In addition to writing about fictional mysteries, there was a real mystery surrounding Christie herself. On a cold winter’s night in 1926, Christie disappeared from her home, leaving behind her daughter Rosalind, an abandoned car, and no explanation. Days later, after an international manhunt and much press, Christie was found at a hotel claiming to have no memory of who she was. This episode only advanced Christie’s fame, as the intrigues of her personal life only added to her mystery novelist persona. Since then, it has been posited that this occurrence was a direct result of marital issues between Christie and her husband. Her husband had started having an affair; by the end of the decade the two would be divorced. This theory is supported by the name that Christie used to check into the hotel, Nancy Neele, which was the name of Archie Christie’s new lover. Though widely discussed by the press and the public, this incident was never mentioned by Christie herself, even in her autobiography. Was it a marketing ploy, a true case of amnesia, a runaway wife, or something in between?

During the late 1920s, Christie began writing under her pseudonym Mary Westmacott, which allowed her to expand her scope of writing to be less focused on mystery and more on interpersonal relationships, human psychology, and love. Absent in the Spring is a Westmacott book with autobiographical components. The book, written in three short days, focuses on a middle-aged woman taking stock of her life, her relationships, and who she has become. Another Westmacott novel that Christie cherished was The Rose and The Yew Tree, which explores a couple grappling with their differing socioeconomic origins and how it affects their relationship. Christie would ultimately publish six Mary Westmacott novels.

In 1930 Christie married archeologist Max Mallowan, 15 years her junior. While married, she accompanied him on archeological expeditions in Iraq and Syria, and often assisted with his digs. These foreign environments had a marked influence on her writing, as seen in books such as Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, Murder in Mesopotamia, Appointment With Death, and They Came to Baghdad, as well as many short stories. Her books continued to be influenced by the ongoing events in her life. During the second World War, her books took a more serious turn, like in N or M?, in which detectives Tommy and Tuppence, now middle-aged, are tasked with subverting German spies.

In 1947, Christie wrote a radio play for BBC titled Three Blind Mice, which ultimately became the stage play The Mousetrap. The Mousetrap premiered in the West End in London in 1952, and is still running today. Omitting the hiatus due to COVID, The Mousetrap is the longest continuously running stage play in the world. During the 1950s Christie found much success as a playwright. In 1954 she became the only playwright to have three productions concurrently running in the West End: The Mousetrap, Witness for the Prosecution, and Spider Web.

Christie's last novel was published three years before her eventual death on January 12, 1976. After her death, her notebooks and dictaphone were discovered and examined. These notes and recordings contained examples of victims, perpetrators, motives, which Christie would then piece these together until a cohesive story emerged. This offers insight into the methodical way that she wrote her detective stories. Instead of focusing too much on the psychological depth of all of these characters, Christie spent more energy focusing on the plots and the “puzzle stories” she so expertly crafted. Over the course of her lifetime, Agatha Christie's inventive storytelling, captivating characters, and unparalleled work ethic enabled her to achieve extraordinary things and leave behind an exceptional legacy.