Agatha Christie's middle name. Brief biography of Agatha Christie
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Name: Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
Birthday: September 15, 1890
Place of Birth: Torquay (UK)
Date of death: January 12, 1976
A place of death: Wallingford (Oxfordshire, UK)
Biography of Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie actually has a different name - Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan, née Miller, but she is better known under the name of Christie, her first husband. She has become popular for her detective stories, which not only contain a gripping story, but are also imbued with insight and intelligence. 
Books by Agatha Christie are in the top three after the Bible and books by William Shakespeare. Her works have been published in many countries around the world. The works sold 120 million copies during the writer’s lifetime alone.
Christie was born in 1890 in Torquay. Her family, American settlers, was quite wealthy, which made it possible to give the children excellent home education. Agatha Christie could become a good musician, but, unfortunately, she was very afraid of the stage.
During the First World War, the writer worked as a nurse and, it is worth noting, this was about her
I really liked it. She also had the opportunity to work as a pharmacist, thanks to which she skillfully “killed” heroes by poisoning in her detective stories.
In 1914, Agatha Miller married Archibald Christie for the first time.
In 1920, the first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published. There is information that the book was written because of a dispute with my sister. Agatha wanted to show that she could write an entire book, which, moreover, would become popular among readers. It was not published by the first publishing house that the writer contacted. The author received a very small fee, but the book immediately became very popular.
In Agatha's life 
Christie has had a very mysterious incident: her sudden disappearance. This happened in 1926. Her husband said that he loves someone else. Christie allegedly traveled to Yorkshire but disappeared for 11 days. She was found in a small hotel. She was listed there under the name of her husband’s mistress. She was diagnosed with amnesia due to a head injury. There is another version: as if she wanted to take revenge on her husband in this way, who would be suspected of the murder and disappearance of his wife. Christie herself did not comment on her disappearance. She spent her time very pleasantly: reading books, playing the piano and visiting the spa. This in no way fits with amnesia, which is why the version of a deliberate escape appeared. In 1928 the couple divorced.
Already in 1930, Agatha Christie meets a man who will be with her until the end of her days. This happened during a trip to Iraq, and her lover was the archaeologist Max Mallowan, who was much younger.
In 1965 she wrote her autobiography. The most memorable last phrase, which revealed the whole essence of Agatha Christie’s life, was: “Thank you, Lord, for my good life and for all the love that was given to me.”
From 1971 to 1974, Agatha Christie began to feel unwell, and her health rapidly began to deteriorate. Experts analyzed her works, which she wrote at that time, and a version emerged that she began to develop Alzheimer's disease. In 1975 she became completely weak. Agatha Christie died in 1976.
Documentary
We bring to your attention a documentary film, a biography of Agatha Christie.
Bibliography of Agatha Christie
Detective novels and short story collections
1920
The Mysterious Incident in Stiles
1922
Mysterious enemy
1923
Murder on the Golf Course
1924
Man in a brown suit
1924
Poirot is investigating
1925
The Mystery of Chimneys Castle
1926
Murder of Roger Ackroyd
1927
Big Four
1928
The Mystery of the Blue Train
1929
Partners in crime
1929
The Mystery of the Seven Dials
1930
Murder at the Vicarage
1930
Mysterious Mr. Keene
1931
Sittaford's Riddle
1932
Endhouse Mystery
1933
Death Hound
1933
Death of Lord Edgware
1933
Thirteen Mysterious Cases
1934
Murder on the Orient Express
1934
Parker Pine investigates
1934
Listerdale Mystery
Lord Listerdale's Mystery
1935
Tragedy in three acts
1935
Why not Evans?
1935
Death in the clouds
1936
Murders by alphabet
1936
Murder in Mesopotamia
1936
Cards on the table
1937
Silent Witness
1937
Death on the Nile
1937
Murder in the backyard
1938
Date with Death
1939
Ten Little Indians
1939
Easy to kill
1939
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
1939
The Secret of the Regatta and Other Stories
1940
sad cypress
1941
Evil under the sun
1941
N or M?
1941
One, two - fasten the buckle
Once, once - the guest is sitting with us
1942
Corpse in the library
1942
Five little pigs
1942
One finger
Holidays in Limstock
Moving finger
Finger of fate
1944
Zero hour
Towards zero
1944
Sparkling cyanide
1945
Death comes at the end
1946
Hollow
1947
Labors of Hercules
1948
Coast of luck
1948
Witness for the prosecution
1949
crooked little house
1950
Murder declared
1950
Three blind mice
1951
Baghdad meetings
Baghdad meeting
Meeting in Baghdad
1951
Quiet "Hounded Dog"
1952
Mrs McGinty died
1952
Using mirrors
1953
Pocket full of rye
Grains in your pocket
1953
After the funeral
1955
Hickory Dickory Dock
1955
Destination unknown
1956
Dead Man's Folly
1957
4.50 from Paddington
1957
Test of Innocence
1959
Cat among pigeons
1960
The Adventure of Christmas Pudding
1961
Villa "White Horse"
1961
Double sin
1962
And, cracking, the mirror rings...
1963
Watch
1964
Caribbean mystery
1965
Hotel Bertram
1966
Third girl
1967
Endless night
Night darkness
1968
Click your finger just once
Your fingers itch, why?
1969
Halloween Party
1970
Passenger from Frankfurt
1971
Nemesis
1971
The Golden Ball and other stories
1972
Elephants can remember
1973
Gate of Fate
1974
Poirot's early cases
1975
A curtain
1976
Sleeping Murder
1979
Miss Marple's Last Cases
1991
Trouble in Pollensa and other stories
1997
Tea set "Harlequin"
1997
As long as the light lasts and other stories
Plays
1928
Alibi
1930
Black coffee
1931
Chimneys
1936
Love from a stranger
1937
A daughter is a daughter
1940
Endhouse Mystery
1943
And there was no one
1945
Date with Death
1946
Death on the Nile
1949
Murder at the Vicarage
1951
Hollow
1952
Mousetrap
1953
Witness for the prosecution
1954
Web
1956
Towards zero
1958
Verdict
1958
Unexpected guest
1960
Back to the kill
1962
Rule of three
1972
Three violinists
1973
Akhenaten
1977
Murder declared
1981
Cards on the table
1993
Killing is easy
Works written under the name Mary Westmacott
1930
Giant's bread
1934
Unfinished portrait
1944
Missing in the spring
1948
Rose and yew
1952
A daughter is a daughter
1956
Burden
Burden of Love
Co-authored works
1931
The Admiral's Last Voyage
1998
Black coffee
2001
Unexpected guest
2003
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During her long creative life, Agatha Christie wrote 60 detective novels and 19 collections of short stories, as well as 6 psychological novels, which she published under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. She not only became one of the most famous writers in the world, but also one of the most published: Christie's books rank third in the number of reprints, second only to the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. She lived a long and eventful life, which in itself is worthy of a separate novel.
On the birthday of the famous writer website publishes her biography.
early years
Agatha Christie as a child, the exact date of filming is unknown.
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on September 15, 1890 in the small English town of Torquay to American Frederick Miller and his Irish wife Clara, whose maiden name was Bomer. She was the third child of the couple, whose daughter Margaret and son Louis were already growing up. Christie later wrote in her autobiography that in her early years, which she spent either at her home in Devon or visiting her grandmother and aunt in South London, she was surrounded by strong and independent women.
Despite the fact that her older sister went to school, Agatha was homeschooled: it is believed that her mother, being a good storyteller and wanting to introduce her daughter to literature herself, did not teach her reading and writing until she was 8 years old. But a girl with natural curiosity I learned to read without anyone’s help and devoured books one after another, and at the age of 10 I already wrote my first poem, “Primrose.”. Among other things, the future writer was taught to play the piano, which she did so well that Christie could have become a professional musician - and only stage fright prevented her from doing so.
Agatha’s childhood, in her own words, ended when she was 11 years old: in 1901, her father died of a heart attack, and the family found itself in a difficult financial situation. The teenager was sent to a city school, but her studies there did not work out, and she was sent to a boarding school in Paris, where the girl stayed until 1910.
First World War and first marriage
Agatha and Archibald Christie, 1919.
20-year-old Agatha returned to Torquay and learned that Clara was ill. To help her overcome her illness, mother and daughter went to Cairo - a place where wealthy Englishmen often vacationed at that time. They lived in a hotel for three months in the Egyptian capital. Agatha often attended social events - as some biographers claim, in unsuccessful attempts to find a spouse.
Upon returning home, the girl took up music and literature - in addition to short stories, she created several musical works. At the same time, she wrote her first novel, “Snow in the Desert,” created under the impression of Egypt, but publishers refused to publish it. One of the family friends recommended her to a literary agent. He also rejected her debut work, but offered to take on writing another novel.
In 1912, Agatha met her future husband, pilot Archibald Christie, under whose name she became famous throughout the world. The couple married on Christmas Eve 1914, but after a short honeymoon the newlyweds separated: Archie went to France, where hostilities were taking place, and Mrs. Christie volunteered to join the Red Cross. She worked as a nurse in a military hospital in her native England, spending a total of about 3,400 hours there. Therefore, the real family life of the spouses began only at the end of the First World War, when Archibald arrived for service in London.
First romance and birth of a daughter
Agatha Christie with her daughter, circa 1923.
Back in 1916, Agatha Christie began writing the novel that was destined to become the first in her long career - The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Its main character was Hercule Poirot, a small Belgian who would “accompany” Christie throughout her life. There is a legend according to which Agatha wrote this work thanks to a bet. She bet with her sister Margaret, who also had an interest in writing and had publications at the time, that she could create something worthwhile.
The novel was rejected by 6 publishers, and only the 7th, John Lane from The Bodley Head, agreed to publish it, but with 2 conditions: the author had to change the ending of the work and sign a contract for 5 more books. In 1920, The Mysterious Affair at Styles hit bookstore shelves.
About a year before the “birth” of Hercule Poirot, Mrs. Christie became a mother: her only daughter, Rosalind, was born. Soon, Christie’s second novel was published, the heroes of which were the married couple of detectives Tommy and Tuppence, and then the third, “Murder on the Golf Course,” where the Belgian detective again appeared before the readers. It is interesting that thanks to her work in a pharmacy in the first years after the war, where the writer learned a lot about poisons, in her books murders are often committed through poisoning - lovers of the Englishwoman’s work counted 83 such invented crimes.
In 1923, the couple, leaving their daughter with Agatha’s mother and sister, went on a trip to the British colonies. Christie continued to create and, in order to break the enslaving contract, in her opinion, she found another publisher. However, the trip not only brought literary success, but, as it turned out later, became the beginning of the end of the married life of Mrs. and Mr. Christie.
The Disappearance of Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie in 1923.
In 1926, Archibald asked for a divorce. He said that while traveling in South Africa he met a certain Nancy Neal and fell in love with her. The couple had a big fight and Archie left to spend the weekend with a girlfriend. A few hours later, Mrs. Christie left the child with the maid, got into the car and drove away from the family estate - which they, by the way, named Stiles in honor of Agatha's first novel - to an unknown destination.
In the morning the car was found several miles from the house. They found outerwear and an expired driver's license in it. A nationwide manhunt was launched and continued 11 days, in which more than 1,000 police officers and 15,000 volunteers took part. Agatha Christie was found in a Yorkshire hotel, where she checked in under the name Teresa Neil from Cape Town, taking the surname of Archie's mistress. According to eyewitnesses, she was confused, did not remember anything and did not recognize her own husband.
At the time, many thought she staged a disappearance act to trick the police into suspecting her husband of murdering her. However, this is unlikely to be true: Clara Miller, the writer’s mother, died that same year, and Agatha was very depressed by her death. Modern doctors believe that both this shock and adultery affected her psyche, causing amnesia. The writer herself never told anyone about where she was and what she did, so the events of those days will remain a mystery forever.
In 1928, the couple divorced. Archibald married a new lover, and Agatha and Rosalind went to the Canary Islands to finish writing “The Mystery of the Blue Train” - a work that, due to numerous worries, could not be given to her. Around the same time, the first of her 6 psychological novels written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. For many years, no one knew the author’s real name, and only almost 20 years later an American journalist revealed Agatha Christie’s secret.
Second marriage
Max Mallowan and Agatha Christie, 1933.
In 1930, while traveling in the Middle East, Agatha Christie met archaeologist Max Mallowan, who was 13 years younger than her. They got married that same year. This marriage turned out to be happy for the writer, and she lived in it until her death.
The couple spent a lot of time on archaeological expeditions in Iraq and Syria. At this time, one of her most famous works was born - “Murder on the Orient Express,” which was written in one of the rooms of the Istanbul Pera Palace Hotel. In room No. 411, where the famous detective master lived, today there is a memorial museum.
Christie mastered the skill of a photographer and captured on film what her husband found, and cleaned shards and ivory items with her own hands. There is a legend that she rubbed them with her own face cream. To better understand archaeology, she read many books on the history of ancient times and began to study extinct languages. Moreover, it was Agatha who persuaded her husband to excavate the mound, thanks to the findings of which he received recognition among his scientific colleagues. This experience is reflected in her work - in several novels the action takes place at excavations.
During World War II, Mallowan was stationed in Cairo, where he worked for the War Department. Agatha Christie herself remained in London and worked as a volunteer at a hospital while continuing to write. In 1943, she became a grandmother: her daughter Rosalind had a son, Matthew.
4 years later to the writer awarded the Order of the British Empire, and in 1971 awarded the title of Dame Commander. 3 years earlier, her husband was also awarded the same award for his services to archeology - so Sir Max Mallowan and Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan became one of the rare couples to separately receive such a high honor.
Agatha Christie's health began to deteriorate, but she did not give up writing. The last novel published during her lifetime was The Curtain. It told about the culmination of a more than 50-year “career” investigation of Hercule Poirot - a character whom Christie herself hated almost as soon as she invented it (!), and called “vile and pompous.”
In fact, the final work about the Belgian detective was written earlier, but the author did not dare to publish it, since the public loved the detective very much. And the death of Monsieur Poirot itself became a real event: after the release of the novel, The New York Times published his obituary - the only one in the history of the newspaper dedicated to a fictional character.
Agatha Clarissa Miller Christie Mallowan died on January 12, 1976, aged 85, suffering from a cold, and was buried in Cholsey Cemetery, Oxfordshire, 3 days later. Her husband, Max Mallowan, died 2 years later and was buried next to his wife of 45 years.
“One Indian correspondent who interviewed me (and, admittedly, asked a lot of stupid questions) asked: “Have you ever published a book that you considered frankly bad?” I answered indignantly: “No!” Not a single book was published. exactly as intended was my answer, and I was never satisfied, but if my book had been really bad, I would never have published it.”
Agatha Christie. Autobiography
GettyImages Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was a very shy child. While her older brother and sister playfully played with each other, she acted out the scenes that appeared in her imagination with herself. She also did not study brilliantly, even according to the modest requirements that were imposed on young students at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Girls were then prepared mainly for marriage: they were taught music, dancing, and needlework. Until the end of her life, Agatha Christie will write with gross spelling errors - which, however, will not interfere with her career as a writer.
The girl sang beautifully, but due to extreme shyness she never decided to perform in front of an audience. It was as if she felt that fate actually had a completely different destiny in store for her.
Love for Archibald
Wikipedia, Link
Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, young Agatha often attended balls of the English aristocracy. Studying at a Parisian boarding school increased her self-confidence, and outwardly the girl was always pretty. It is not surprising that one evening Agatha was noticed by RAF Lieutenant Archibald Christie. The feeling turned out to be mutual. The young people hurried to get engaged as soon as possible, and they did not delay the wedding - soon Archie had to leave for war, and Agatha remained in London. Separated from her husband, performing the difficult duties of a nurse in a military hospital, she first tried to write down the story that was born in her head. Daily work with medicines and poisons suggested the murder weapon - the hero of the novel died from poisoning, and the crime was solved by a funny little Belgian with the big name Hercule Poirot. Agatha “copied” the appearance of the character from a real person, having once seen a group of refugees from Belgium on the streets of the city.
Archibald Christie, two family friends and Agatha Christie, Link
Time passed, Archibald returned from the war and tried to become a businessman to support his family. Agatha gave birth to his daughter Rosalind, and it was a bit crowded for the three of them in the small rented apartment. But business didn’t work out. One day my husband jokingly asked how her manuscript was doing? By that time, Agatha was determined to become a writer. But The Mysterious Affair at Styles was rejected by six publishers one after another. Archie's question prompted her to try her luck with the seventh. To her surprise, the novel was published, and she was given a fee of 25 English pounds. “Now you can earn a lot of money!” - this phrase from her husband finally confirmed Agatha in the idea that writing should be turned from a hobby into a real job.
Unlucky 1926
In six years - from 1920 to 1926 - she published six novels, Poirot could already compete in popularity with Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha and her husband changed their rented apartment to their own house in the suburbs and even bought a car. The white streak in her life ended unexpectedly. First, Agatha's mother died. Not having time to recover from the loss, she was faced with a new misfortune. Archibald Christie admitted that he fell in love with someone else: his golf partner Nancy Neal. A quarrel followed, Archie left the house, slamming the door, and returned home only in the morning. The house was empty: Agatha left by car, leaving a note that she was going to Yorkshire. But there was only an abandoned car there. The writer disappeared - and the family quarrel acquired criminal overtones. By this time, Agatha Christie was already a well-known person in England, so the entire local police was sent to search for her, 15 thousand people helped voluntarily. Suspicion inevitably fell on the unfaithful husband, but it turned out that Colonel Christie had nothing to do with it.
10 days later, Agatha was found in a sanatorium, where all this time she went to physiotherapeutic procedures, played the piano and, in general, had a good time. But the strangest thing was the name under which the writer registered: she called herself Teresa Neal, taking the surname of her rival. She and Archibald divorced two years later, in 1928. She did not give any comments or explanations for her behavior in those 10 days for the rest of her life. Agatha once told a particularly meticulous journalist that she didn’t remember anything—thus, the version of amnesia due to nervousness was born. After the writer's death, British scientists analyzed her later manuscripts and stated that Agatha Christie suffered from Alzheimer's disease. But her grandson Matthew Pritchard denied these rumors. “I never discussed this act of hers either with herself, or with her mother, or with the people who witnessed the disappearance. I can only say that when people suffer, when they acutely experience misfortune, they are capable of very strange things.”“The only thing I can say with confidence is that my grandmother did not, as many people think, strive for publicity, to attract attention to herself or her books. She was very unhappy at the time, and a lot of people in her place would have behaved in a similar way,” Pritchard said.
The archaeologist's favorite woman
Agatha Christie decided to heal from her misfortunes by working and traveling. She booked a compartment on the Orient Express train (yes, that same one) and went to Baghdad. It was there, in Iraq, that the writer met her second love, the architect Max Mallowan. He was her guide at the excavations of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur. Throughout the entire season of excavations, Max was there: showing the country, talking about ancient monuments of civilization, even entrusting the processing of the found shards. “I thought then, as I often thought later, what a wonderful person Max is. So calm, he takes his time to console. He doesn't talk, he does. She does what is needed, and this turns out to be the best consolation,” Agatha later wrote in her autobiography. When the excavation season ended, the archaeologist volunteered to accompany her to England - and proposed. She also fell in love with him, but did not decide to get married right away. The previous bad experience and the age difference were scary: Max was 15 years younger, he was only 25, and she was already 40!
Agatha Christie and Max at the excavations - http://www.gwthomas.org/murderinmeso.htm , Public Domain, Link
But their feelings were so strong that they had to ignore such conventions. Subsequently, Agatha Christie joked freely on this topic: the older a woman is, the more valuable she is to an archaeologist. Their marriage with Max turned out to be happy and lasted until the end of their lives. Together they traveled throughout the Middle East, which gave the writer many ideas for her detective stories. He survived her by only two years.
After Agatha Christie's death in 1976, the last novel about Hercule Poirot and her autobiography were published.
“Thank you, Lord, for your virtuous life and for all the love that was given to me,” she finished her last manuscript with these words.
Agatha Christie is a famous English writer, prose writer, author of plays and popular detective novels. She is the author of stories about such iconic detectives as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, who can rival the fame of the unforgettable Sherlock Holmes (author - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
A biography and essay on Agatha Christie's work will undoubtedly prove quite useful and interesting for our readers.
short biography
Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallone (Miller before her second marriage), who later became famous as the writer Agatha Christie, was born in a small English town. The girl's parents were fairly wealthy emigrants from the United States of America. Three children grew up in the family: Agatha, as well as her brother Louis and sister Margaret.
Agatha Christie's biography is devoid of events, at least in the early years of the writer's life. Agatha's father died early, and the family lived poorly. The girl studied poorly and changed several educational institutions, while she was interested in music.
When World War I began at the beginning of the twentieth century, Agatha went to work in a hospital for wounded soldiers as a nurse. This gave her invaluable life experience. It is known, by the way, that a young, unknown nurse began writing her first novel while working in a hospital.
When the war ended, the future famous writer studied to become a pharmacist. Thanks to this, she, having become the author of detective works, was able to describe poisoning using various toxic substances quite reliably.
The very first detective novel by this author, who changed his cumbersome name to a euphonious pseudonym, was written in 1915. True, the public was able to get acquainted with this work only in 1920, since until that moment all publishing houses rejected it.
There is also an autobiographical work: “Agatha Christie. Autobiography".
It will be useful for the reader to learn some instructive and funny facts about the famous writer:
- Agatha Christie was honored to be awarded the Order of the British Empire, received the title of noblewoman - “lady”, and her biography invariably sells in huge numbers.
- Christie signed some of her works with the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.
- According to some researchers, the writer suffered from incurable diseases: some call Alzheimer's disease, and others call dysgraphia.
- Agatha Christie happened to disappear, frightening the entire world community: when her husband asked for a divorce, the author of detective stories disappeared for eleven whole days and was even put on the national wanted list.
- In the books of the English writer, exactly 83 murders were committed with the help of highly toxic poisons.
- Agatha Christie's autobiographical story ends with the following phrase: “Thank you, Lord, for my wonderful life and for all the love that was given to me.”
During her lifetime, Agatha Christie received the proud title of “Queen of Detectives” from the British and American press.
Contribution to literature
This writer penned many literary works. There are two major series of her novels about great detectives: the adventures of Hercule Poirot, a funny Belgian eccentric detective; as well as a series of stories about Miss Marple, a sweet and respectable old lady, whose prototype is called Agatha Christie herself, as well as her elderly grandmother, who has not lost her sharp mind.
It is also necessary to mention that Agatha Christie's literary works have been filmed several times. Even the most famous film adaptations cannot fit on one page. Here are some of them:
- "Murder on the Orient Express".
- "Agatha Christie's Poirot."
- "Ten Little Indians."
- "The Big Alibi"
- "Miss Marple".
- "Mousetrap".
And this is not a complete list of film adaptations of her novels.
The series about Hercule Poirot was even adapted into a TV series, which is now quite popular and includes several well-developed seasons. But Miss Marple was not left without her own series: a feature film was made, consisting of many parts, in which the main roles were played by wonderful English and American theater and film actors.
Under another pseudonym, the English writer also published psychological novels - thrillers, as they would be called today. These psychological novels, like, in principle, her detective prose, were distinguished by a twisted, extraordinary plot and eventful action that kept the reader in suspense until the very last page.
In general, the work of the famous Englishwoman was truly heterogeneous, rich in new plot solutions, techniques and intrigues that had not previously been used by other writers.
Agatha Christie can be called a truly great writer. Her works occupy third place in the list of most published books, second only to the Bible and William Shakespeare. The writer created more than sixty novels, wrote creepy thrillers under another pseudonym, and was also the author of several plays that immediately appeared in the repertoires of the most famous London theaters. Her best books have been filmed.
So, there is no doubt that Agatha Christie made a truly invaluable contribution to English and, of course, world literature. Author: Irina Shumilova
Do you know which books are the most published in the world? In first place is the Bible, in second place are the immortal works of Shakespeare. But on the third - works belonging to the “light genre”, the so-called entertaining literature, united by genre and author. Agatha Christie's detective stories are in third place in the world in terms of publication frequency. Over 4 billion copies of her works have been published in more than 100 languages. So who was the famous writer Agatha Christie?
Her biography sometimes resembles one of the writer’s novels. It contains love, betrayal and a mysterious disappearance with a happy ending.
The maiden name of the future writer is Miller. She was born in 1890 in the small town of Torquay.
During the First World War, the girl worked as a nurse in a military hospital, and then as a pharmacist in a pharmacy. Knowledge in the field of chemicals, and especially poisons, was useful to Agatha in her work. 83 of the murders she described in detective stories were poisonings.
In 1914, out of great mutual love, young Agatha Miller married a colonel whose name was Archibald Christie. Soon she will glorify this surname.
The first detective novel was published in 1920. It was called "The Mysterious Affair at Styles." The author was identified as the unknown Agatha Christie. Her biography as a writer began precisely then.
1926 turned out to be an extremely difficult year for Agatha. She had to endure two hardest blows during this period: the death of her mother and her husband’s betrayal. In the twelfth year of marriage, Archibald asked his wife for a divorce due to the fact that he had met another woman. There was a quarrel between them, after which Agatha Christie suddenly disappeared from the house. The writer’s biography says that for 11 days her whereabouts remained a secret. It was only after this period that she was found in a small hotel, where she registered under the name of her husband’s mistress. However, she could not really explain how she got there, as a result of which doctors diagnosed her with amnesia. What actually happened is unknown, but it is believed that it was a case of what is medically called “dissociative fugue” - a disease caused by a severe mental disorder.
Two years after this incident, the Christie couple divorced.
However, fate was favorable to an English lady named Agatha Christie. A short biography reports that already in 1930 the writer met an archaeologist, with whom she lived in a happy marriage for the rest of her life (46 years). His name was Max Mallowan, and he was 15 years younger than his wife.
Agatha Christie, whose biography is the focus of our attention, lived to be 86 years old. During this time, she wrote 60 detective novels and 6 psychological novels. The latter were released under the pseudonyms Westmacott or Mary Westmacott. 19 collections were published, which mainly included short stories. And 16 of her plays premiered in London theaters. One of them, “The Mousetrap,” became a record holder for the number of productions. The author's favorite creation was the novel Ten Little Indians.
Many films have been made based on the writer’s works, including multi-part ones, in which viewers with intense attention follow the investigations carried out by their favorite heroes - Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Not only the books of the famous writer, but also stories about her are of great interest to readers. Similar monographs are published in different languages. There is also a biography of Agatha Christie in Russian by E. N. Tsimbaeva, entitled “Agatha Christie,” published in 2013.
