Preview

Agatha Christie : the Queen of Crime - Paper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2002 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Agatha Christie : the Queen of Crime - Paper
The Queen of Crime: Agatha Christie
I. Introduction Thesis Statement
II. Body I. Life and Career A. Family background and Childhood B. First marriage and the First World War C. Christie’s first novels D. Disappearance E. Second marriage and later life II. Famous Characters on her work A. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple III. Archaeology and Agatha Christie
III. Conclusion

I. Introduction Agatha Christie is one of the most popular and best-known novelists ever, and her books have been translated into more languages than those of any other writer. Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller on 15 September 1890 in Torquay, England. She enjoyed a settled, comfortable childhood, her family, did not have to work for a living as they had a private income, and the family employed servants to help with the housework. Agatha later missed this easy way of life, which provided the background of her later life and stories.
II. Body Agatha Christie was born to a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon in South West England. Christie’s mother, Clara, suffered under financial strain and she is sent to live with relations in the North of England, where she would meet her future husband, an American stockbroker named Frederick Alvah Miller. He soon developed a romantic relationship with Clara, and they were married in April 1878. Their first child Margaret Frary Miller was born when the couple were renting lodgings, while their second, Louis Montant was born In the U.S. state of New York, when Frederick was on a business trip. Clara soon purchased a villa, named “Ashfield”, and it was here that her third and final child, Agatha, was born. Christie would describe her childhood as “very happy”, her time was spent alternating between her grandmother’s home where her family would holiday during winter. She was also raised in a household with various esoteric beliefs, and they believe that their mother Clara was a psychic. Her mother did not



Links: In late 1926, her life was in tatters: Christie’s mother Clara died and Archie left her for another woman. On 3 December 1926 the couple quarrelled, and Archie left their house Styles in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public, many of whom were admirers of her novels. Despite a massive manhunt, she was not found for 11 days. On 14 December 1926 Agatha Christie was identified as a guest in Swan Hydropathic Hotel where she was registered as Mrs Teresa Neele. Christie never accounted her disappearance. Although two doctors diagnosed her as suffering from psychogenic fugue, opinion remains divided. A nervous breakdown from a natural propensity for depression may have been exacerbated by 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 attempt to frame her husband for murder. But author Jared Cade interviewed numerous witnesses and it provided a substantial amount of evidence that Agatha planned the entire disappearance to embarrass her husband. The Christies divorced in 1928. Christie slowly rebuilt her life and in 1930 she visited Baghdad for a second time. It was here she met Max Mallowman, an archaeologist. Max took Agatha on a tour of Baghdad and the desert – it was an action packed journey – their car got stuck in the sand and they were rescued by the Desert Camel Corps. When they reached Athens, Agatha received a telegram saying that Rosalind was seriously ill. Agatha’s only concern was to get home, however she badly sprained her ankle on an Athens street and was unable to walk. Max chose to accompany her back to England. She could not have made the trip without him and when they reached home he proposed and she happily accepted. Agatha accompanied Max on his annual archaeological expeditions for nearly 30 years. She continued to write, both at home and on field trips and her book Come, Tell Me How You Live wittily describes her days on digs in Syria. Her travels with Mallowman contributed background to several of her novels. Her novel And Then There Were None, which is her bestselling novel and Murder on the Orient Express were written in Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. During the Second World War, Christie worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital, London, where she acquired knowledge of poisons that she put to good use in her post-war crime novels. For example, the use of thallium, which she incorporated in her novel The Pale Horse. To honour her many literary works, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956 New Year Honours. The next year, she became the President of the Detection Club. In the 1971 New Year Honours she was promoted Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, three years after her husband had been knighted 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, due to her husband’s knighthood, Christie could also be styled as Lady Mallowman. From 1971 to 1974, Christie’s health began to fail, although she continued to write. In 1975, sensing her weakness, Christie signed over the rights of her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson. Agatha Christie’s first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie’s novels and 54 short stories. Well known Miss Marple was introduced in The Thirteen Problems in 1927 and was based on Christie’s grandmother and her “Ealing cronies”. During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, Curtain and Sleeping Murder, intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years and were released for publications 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 film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot “insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep." However, unlike 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. Feeling tied down, stuck with a love interest, she did marry off Hastings in an attempt to trim her cast commitments. Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain. It appeared on the front page of the paper on 6 August 1975. In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, it is interesting to note that 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 The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s. Christie had always had an interest in archaeology. On her trip to Baghdad she visited the archaeological digs at Ur. She was received particularly warmly by the archaeologist Leonard Wooley because his wife, Katherine, had just finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and was a huge fan. On a return trip 1930, she met Max, the man she would later marry. And both of them threw their selves on investigating ancient civilizations. She developed the photographs on the early excavations and later photographed the digs herself. She also worked on the restoration and labelling of ancient exhibits; cleaning and conserving the delicate ivory pieces. She was, in her lifetime, one of the most informed women in the world in the archaeological field. Many of her works had archaeological influences and some of the popular are Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) which she dedicated to her many archaeological friends in Syria and Iraq. And The atmospheric description in Appointment with Death (1938) was based on her visits to Petra, while the actual layout of the Nile streamer SS Karnak is crucial to the plot of Death on Nile (1937) and They Came to Baghdad (1951) the heroine talks about her experience on a dig in Southern Mesopotamia. Looking back over her life as an author, she said that, whilst the characters that she created were fictitious, the settings were always real. III. Conclusion Agatha’s accomplished books are still with us today and used and bought frequently, her stage plays still running, her books still selling, and her name “The Queen of Crime,” still stuck in everybody that enjoyed her novels.  Most of her things when she died were left to her nephew and daughter. Agatha one of the best authors of crime writing ever born and still remembered to this very day as the “Queen of Crime.” I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. Agatha Christie The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don 't give a damn. Agatha Christie

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    the puzzle game

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Christie is a great detective author because of how many styles she incorporates in her stories and how many games she likes to “play” at one time. For instance, In the Mysterious Affair, Christie uses the element of hidden identity or impersonation. In this method, the murder is allowed to move freely within a familiar environment without arousing any suspicion. For example, the main character devised his murder plan in the most secretive manner possible and then waited until he had no suspicion on him, but made sure there was much confusion between the rest of the circle until he was able to act and make his move. After reading the puzzle game, I do find it helpful to understand detective fiction, especially with this piece by Christie. I was able to pick up on the scheme of things and pick out the murderer much quicker since I knew certain techniques and rules to the game.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Julie Andrews was born Julia Elizabeth Wells on October 1, 1935, in a south suburb of London called Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey, England. She came from a musical family; her mother was a pianist and her stepfather was a singer with whom she performed in many of their stage shows. She performed in her first royal command performance, for Princess Margaret and others, at London 's Stage Door Canteen.…

    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The femme fatale can be described as an irresistibly attractive woman, often the love interest of the protagonist, who uses her sexuality as means to acquire what she wants and fulfil her own desires. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character, Irene Adler in A Scandal in Bohemia appears to be a prototype for this femme fatale figure which has become a feature in almost all texts of the Noir fiction world. The traits of the femme fatale are evident largely in the physical appearance of the women, the way they act and their function as a plot device. Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon provides an excellent example of the role of the femme fatale in noir detective fiction.…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I recently read a mystery book by the name of "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie. I read this book because I have read other books by Agatha Christie that were pretty well written.<br><br>Ten people are invited to an island, called "Indian Island",by letters that were signed by people they had met before. When they got to the island, they found out that their host, U.N.Owen, had not arrived yet. At dinner, they heard a voice, accusing each of them of a murder, which they were all guilty of. After one of them is killed, according to the first verse of a poem that is framed above each of their beds called "Ten Little Indians", they figure out that the murderer is one of them! As more people are killed off, one by one, the group narrows the suspect list down, until only one is left alive but she figured that she would never get off the islan anyway, and she hung herself from the ceiling by putting a noose around her neck and kicking the chair away on which she was standing, but she was not the killer.<br><br>One of the mysteries to this book was, of course, who killed all of the innocent people. Another mystery was that every time another person was killed a little indian figure would disappear from the edges of a serving plate. One more mystery was that every murder followed, in order, the famous poem "Ten Little Indians", which reads: <br><br><i>Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;<br>One chocked his self and then there were nine.<br>Nine Indian boys sat up very late;<br>One overslept himself then there were eight.<br>Eight Indian boys traveling in Devon;<br>One said he'd stay there then there were seven.<br>Seven Indian boys chopping up sticks;<br>One chopped himself in halves then there were six.<br>Six Indian boys playing with a hive;<br>A bumble-bee stung one then there were five.<br>Five Indian boys going in for law;<br>One got in Chancery then there were four.<br>Four Indian boys going out to sea;<br>A red herring swallowed one then there were…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Julie Andrews

    • 2334 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Julie Andrews was born Julia Elizabeth Wells on 1 October 1935 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. She is a born natural at performing, and she loves the stage. She made her first stage appearance at the very young age of two, as a fairy. Her aunt, Joan worked for dancing school where her mother, Barbara provided piano accompaniment for classes and performances, and her father, Ted made the stage sets. It was all too natural for her to come to be on the stage. Due to her mother’s stage ambitions for her, she was home taught and as her father was a teacher, it became convenient.…

    • 2334 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Great British Stories. “Christie, Agatha. ‘The Witness for the Prosecution.’” Austin, TX: Holt and Winston, 1991. 275 – 297.…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Title: And Then There Were None Author: Agatha Christie Description of characters: 1. Lawrence Wargrave: Lawrence Wargrave was a retired judge. He's an older man with a dominant personality, and commanded the group when they realized a killer was after them.…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In order to maintain an atmosphere of uncertainty and suspense, an author must leave the reader guessing and on edge. Christie masterfully fulfills this within her plot, and this is what has caused her to be dubbed as “The Queen of Mystery”. The plot of And Then There Were None, due to the abundance of characters, each with their own backstory and individual storyline, is complicated, and filled with intricacies that help the individual characters come together to be part of a larger plot. However, Christie is able to maintain clarity and hold attention whilst writing her magnificent tale through the use of character diction, a communal conflict, and a shocking resolution.…

    • 1257 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Considering common perceptions of bliss and the fact that, in 1926, Barthes had not yet presented his theories on these types of texts, the earliest readers of Christie 's novel may have objected to the term being used in connection with their experience of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In her biography of Agatha Christie, Mary S. Wagoner writes that "the tricky surprise" of the narrative even incited "public furor" (Wagoner 41). Why were some people upset? Douglas R. McManis explains, "Writers of mystery fiction were expected to use a format of prescribed traditions . . ." (319). Christie, however, "broke with many of the early format restrictions" (320). Consequently, some readers at the time objected to the story and accused her of having "violated one of the cardinal rules of fair play" by "deceiving the reader with respect to the identity of the murderer" (Gerald 234 n1).…

    • 3234 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This year, in English, I was required to read Agatha Christie’s famous mystery novel, “And Then There Were None…” When I first started reading, I didn’t really enjoy the book. The beginning of the novel was just character introductions and invitations to a suspenseful place called Indian Island. As the story began to progress, I found the book strangely intriguing. It was about the perfect murder. The interesting part of the novel is wondering who was committing the murder, so it keeps you guessing. There were also very funny puns. My favorite pun was the person who invited all the guests, U.N. Owen, who later in the book, was found to stand for UNKNOWN.…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

    • 70209 Words
    • 281 Pages

    Christie, Agatha - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie - The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd [First published in Great Britain, 1926]…

    • 70209 Words
    • 281 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Agatha Christie Biography

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller Christy (September 15, 1890 - January 12, 1976), was a British crime fiction writer.…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zemboy, James. "The Pale Horse." The Detective Novels of Agatha Christie: A Reader 's Guide. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2008. 327-33. Print.…

    • 1202 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Agatha

    • 1616 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The most sold fiction author is not William Shakespeare, not Edgar Allen Poe, nor is it J.K. Rowling. Agatha Christie is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “Best Selling Fiction Author of All-Time” in 2007. As an author, she also holds a place in being called the “second best-selling author of all time” and “the second most translated book” only behind William Shakespeare and The Bible, respectively. Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England on September 15, 1890. She lived a relatively isolated childhood, being homeschooled by her mother, Clarissa Boehmer, and her father, Fredrick Alvah Miller, before his passing in1900 when Agatha was just 10. Without her siblings, Madge and Monty, who lived in boarding school, Agatha was forced to play with her imaginary friends. Her imagination was so impeccable at such a young age, that it was obvious that she was going to be a creative, literary genius. Agatha’s life path was set so that it would be her “destiny” to become a legend in the murder mystery genre. The body of work that Agatha developed over her lifetime was impressive, to say the least. “Christie enjoyed a career that spanned over fifty years and her works have now sold into the billions.”(http://www.online-literature.com/agatha_christie/) Her murder mystery, in particular spanned over many forms of media, from over 80 novels, to short stories, to series of books, to plays, to radio broadcasts, and even to films. She lived in a difficult reality, but was able to manipulate life for her own well-being, at the same time. Her stories were not finished when she was deceased on December 1, 1976, but they have been immortalized in time, never ceasing to amaze and entertain a reader. She solidified the movement of The Golden Age of Detective Fiction that was started by her main influences. Agatha Christie was…

    • 1616 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    _Reasoning about style to the detective, within the framework of which by us four works of popular author of detective novels were explored – the English authoress Agatha Cristi – we tried to…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays

Related Topics