Ministerul Educaiei, Cercetrii i Tineretului

Liceul Teoretic Gheorghe Lazr

Pecica, judeul Arad



















Coordonator , Candidat,
Prof . Gudea Alina Brumar Alexandra-Flavia


2014
Agatha Christie


1

Agatha Christie

Content

Argument
2
Introduction
3
I. Life and career 4
1. Childhood 4
2. First marriage 5
3. First novels 6
4. Dissapearance 7
5. Second marriage and later life 8
II. Work 10
1. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple 10
2. Formula and plot devices 11
III. Archeology 12
1. Archaeological influences in her writing 12
2. Characters 13
3. Spirituality 13
Bibliography
14




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Agatha Christie

Argument

I wrote this paper about Agatha Christie because she is my favorite novelist since childhood. She
also is my grandmothers favorite author so instead of children tales, my grandmother read me
stories with Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. As I grew up, I started playing games inspired by
Agatha Christies books and watching movies with her famous detective Poirot.
I enjoy reading Agatha Christies books because I always find out something new about life and
about people. Its fascinating how humans act in conditions of stress and how hard they try to hide
their mistakes. The psychology of murder it is an important part of her masterpieces. She had always
tried to reveal the human condition and that made her an exceptional writer.
Most of her books are inspired by the places she had visited while she was married with Max
Mallowan. She found the archeological life an interesting surrounding for her stories and tried to
describe in detail every scenary.
In conclusion, I choose to write about Agatha Christie because she is the best writer I have ever
known and her life and work has always fascinated me. Her sense of curiosity and the mystery she
had created in her books are the tools that made every single one a masterpiece. My favorite book is
Murder on the Orient Express but I intent to read the whole collection.




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Agatha Christie

Introduction

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. She also wrote six romances under the
name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story
collections she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigations of such
characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple and Tommy and Tuppence. She also wrote the
world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap.
Born to a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, Christie served in a hospital during
the First World War, before marrying and starting a family in London. Although initially
unsuccessful at getting her work published, in 1920, The Bodley Head press published her novel
The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Poirot. This launched her literary career.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time.
Her novels have sold roughly 4 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after
those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the world's most-widely published books. According
to Index Translationum, Christie is the most-translated individual author, and her books have been
translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel
with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-
selling books of all time. In 1971, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham
Palace.
Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run: it opened at the
Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is still running after more
than 25,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of
America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year Witness for the
Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. Many of her books and short
stories have been filmed, and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.



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Agatha Christie

I. Life and career
1. Childhood

On September 15, 1890, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born the daughter of Frederick Miller and
Clara Miller (ne Boehmer) in the seaside resort town of Torquay, England. Frederick, an easy
going, independently wealthy American stockbroker, and Clara, an Englishwoman, raised their three
children -- Margaret, Monty, and Agatha -- in an Italian-style stucco mansion complete with
servants.
Agatha was educated in her happy, peaceful home via a mixture of tutors and Nursie, her nanny.
Agatha was an avid reader, especially Arthur Conan
Doyles Sherlock Holmes series. She and her friends
enjoyed acting out gloomy stories where everyone
died, which Agatha wrote herself. She played croquet
and took piano lessons; however, her extreme
shyness kept her from publicly performing.
In 1901, when Agatha was 11, her father died of a
heart attack. Frederick had made some bad
investments, leaving his family financially
unprepared for his untimely death. Although Clara
was able to keep their home since the mortgage was
paid, she was forced to make several household cuts,
including the staff. Rather than home tutors, Agatha
went to Miss Guyers School in Torquay; Monty
joined the army; and Margaret married.
For high school, Agatha went to a finishing school in Paris where her mother hoped her daughter
would become an opera singer. Although good at singing, Agathas stage fright once again prevented
her from publicly performing. After her graduation, she and her mother traveled to Egypt. She visited
such ancient Egyptian monuments as the Great Pyramid of Giza, but did not exhibit the great interest
in archaeology and Egyptology that became prominent in her later years.



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Agatha Christie

2. First marriage

Christie was searching for a husband, and entered into short-lived relationships with four separate
men and an engagement with another. She then met Archibald "Archie" Christie (1889-1962) at a
dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford of Chudleigh, about 12 miles (19 kilometres) from Torquay.
Archie had been born in India, the son of a judge in the Indian Civil Service. In England he joined
the air service, stationed at Devon in 1912. The couple quickly fell in love. Upon learning he would
be stationed in Farnborough, Archie proposed marriage, and Agatha accepted.
1914 saw the outbreak of World War I, and Archie was sent to France to do battle with the German
forces. Agatha also involved herself in the war effort, joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD)
and attending to wounded soldiers at the hospital in Torquay. In this position she was responsible for
aiding the doctors and maintaining morale; performing 3,400 hours of unpaid work between October
1914 and December 1916. As a dispenser, she finally earned 16 yearly until the end of her service
in September 1918.
Agatha married Archie on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. They met throughout the war every time
he was posted home. Rising through the ranks, he was eventually stationed back to Britain in
September 1918 as a colonel in the Air Ministry. They settled into a flat at 5 Northwick Terrace in
St. John's Wood, Northwest London.

With my husband, Archie, after his investiture in 1919.-Agatha Christie.



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Agatha Christie

3. First novels

Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins' The Woman in
White and The Moonstone as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories.
She wrote her own detective novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles featuring Hercule Poirot,
portrayed as a former Belgian police officer noted for
his twirly large "magnificent moustaches" and egg-
shaped head, who took refuge in Britain after
Germany had invaded Belgium. Christie's inspiration
for this stemmed from real Belgian refugees who
existed in Torquay.
The Styles manuscript was not accepted by such
publishing companies as Hodder and Stoughton and
Methuen. However, John Lane at The Bodley Head
kept the submission for several months, then offered
to accept it provided Christie change the ending. She
duly did so, and then signed a contract that she later
felt was exploitative. Christie meanwhile settled into
married life, giving birth to daughter Rosalind at Ashfield in August 1919, where the couple having
few friends in London spent much of their time. Archie left the Air Force at the end of the war and
started working in the City financial sector at a relatively low salary, though they still employed a
maid.
Christie's second novel, The Secret Adversary (1922), featured a new detective couple Tommy and
Tuppence. Again published by The Bodley Head, it earned her 50. A third novel again featured
Poirot, Murder on the Links (1923), as did short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of
Sketch magazine. In order to tour the world promoting the British Empire Exhibition the couple left
their daughter Rosalind with Agatha's mother and sister then travelled to South Africa, Australia,
New Zealand and Hawaii. They learned to surf prone in South Africa, then in Waikiki were among
the first Britains to surf standing up.




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Agatha Christie

4. Disappearance

In late 1926, Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He was in love with Nancy Neele, who had been
secretary to Major Belcher, 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, Styles, in
Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same
evening, 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 Morris Cowley, was later found at Newlands Corner, by a lake near Guildford, with an
expired driving license and clothes. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public. The Home
Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, pressured police, and a newspaper offered 100 reward. Over a
thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers and several aeroplanes scoured the rural landscape.
Christie's disappearance 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, Agatha Christie was found at the
Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel) in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as 'Mrs
Teresa Neele' from Cape Town.
Christie never explained 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.
Author Jared Cade interviewed numerous witnesses and relatives for his sympathetic biography,
Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days, revised 2011. He provided substantial evidence to
suggest she planned the event to embarrass her husband, never supposing the resulting escalated
melodrama. The 1979 Michael Apteds film Agatha starring Vanessa Redgrave, Dustin Hoffman
and Timothy Dalton depicts Christie planning suicide, to frame her husband's mistress for her
"murder". An American reporter, played by Hoffman, follows her closely and stops the plan.
The Christies divorced in 1928, and Archie married Nancy Neele. Agatha retained custody of
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.


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Agatha Christie

5. Second marriage and later life

In 1930 Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan, having met him in an archaeological dig.
Their marriage was always happy, and it continued until Christie's death in 1976. Max introduced her
to wine, which she never enjoyed - preferring to drink water in restaurants. She tried unsuccessfully
to make herself like cigarettes by smoking one after lunch and one after dinner every day for six
months.
Christie frequently used settings that were familiar to her for her stories. Her travels with Mallowan
contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as And
Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, where she was raised. Christie's 1934
novel Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the
southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author.
The Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the
care of the National Trust.
Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts, basing at
least two stories there: a short story "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", in the story
collection of the same name, and the novel After the Funeral. 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 University College Hospital,
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 thallium 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 The Pale
Horse, 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.
Christie lived in Chelsea, first in Cresswell Place and later in Sheffield Terrace. Both properties are
now marked by blue plaques.
Around 19411942, the British intelligence agency, MI5, investigated Agatha Christie. A character
called Major Bletchley appeared in her 1941 thriller N or M?, a story that features a hunt for two


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Agatha Christie

of Hitler's top secret spy agents in Britain. MI5 was afraid that Christie had a spy in Britain's top-
secret codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park. The agency's fears were allayed when Christie
commented to codebreaker Dilly Knox that Bletchley was simply the name of "one of my least
lovable characters."
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, owing to her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled Lady Mallowan.
From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, although she continued to write. In 1975, sensing
her increasing weakness, Christie signed over the rights of her most successful play, The
Mousetrap, to her grandson. Recently, using experimental textual tools of analysis, Canadian
researchers have suggested that Christie may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other
dementia.
Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her Winterbrook House in
the north of Cholsey parish, adjoining Wallingford in Oxfordshire (formerly part of Berkshire). She
is buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey.
Christie's only child, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, died, also aged 85, on 28 October 2004 from natural
causes in Torbay, Devon. Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, was heir to the copyright to some of
his grandmother's literary work (including The Mousetrap) and is still associated with Agatha
Christie Limited.
.
Agatha Christie and Max Mallowan with an archeologist on a site.


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Agatha Christie

II. Work
1. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple

Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced
the detective Hercule Poirot, who became a long-running character in many of Christie's works,
appearing in 33 novels and 54 short stories.
Miss (Jane) Marple, who also became well known, was introduced in the short stories The Thirteen
Problems in 1927 and 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". Miss Marple appeared in 12 of Christie's novels.
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 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 film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.
Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her
detective Poirot. 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.
Feeling tied down, stuck with a love interest, she did marry off Hastings in an attempt to trim her
cast commitments. In 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 The Murder at the Vicarage 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".


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Agatha Christie

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.
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 despite the fact 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. Miss Marple fared better than
Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular life in
St. Mary Mead.

2. Formula and plot devices

Agatha Christie's reputation as "The Queen of Crime" was built upon the large number of classic
motifs 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. At the end, in a
Christie hallmark, the detective usually gathers the surviving suspects into one room, explains the
course of his or her deductive reasoning, and reveals the guilty party.


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Agatha Christie

III. Archaeology

While accompanying Mallowan on countless archaeological trips (spending up to 34 months at a
time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Ninevah, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak,
and Nimrud), Christie not only wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed work to the
archaeological sites, more specifically to the archaeological restoration and labelling of ancient
exhibits which includes tasks such as cleaning and conserving delicate ivory pieces, reconstructing
pottery, developing photos from early excavations which later led to taking photographs of the site
and its findings, and taking field notes.
So as to not influence the funding of the archaeological excavations, Christie would always pay for
her own board and lodging and her travel expenses, and supported excavations as an anonymous
sponsor.
After the Second World War, she chronicled her time in Syria with fondness in "Come Tell Me How
You Live". Anecdotes, memories, funny episodes, are strung in a rough timeline, with more
emphasis on eccentric characters, lovely scenery, than factual accuracy.
1. Archaeological influences in her writing

Many of the settings for Agatha Christie's books were directly inspired by the many archaeological
field seasons spent in the Middle East on the sites
managed by her husband Max. The extent of her
time spent at the many locations featured in her
books is apparent from the extreme detail in which
she describes them. One such site featured in her
work is the temple site of Abu Simbel, depicted in
Death on the Nile. Also there is the great detail in
which she describes life at the dig site in Murder
in Mesopotamia.



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Agatha Christie

2. Characters

Among the characters in her books, Christie has often given prominence to the archaeologists and
experts in Middle Eastern cultures and artefacts. Most notable are the characters of Dr. Eric Leidner
in Murder in Mesopotamia and Signor Richetti in Death on the Nile, while many minor
characters in They Came to Baghdad were archaeologists.
Indirectly, Christie's famous character Hercule Poirot may be compared to an archaeologist by the
manner of his detailed scrutiny of all facts both large and small. Cornelius Holtorf, an academic
archaeologist, cites an archaeologist as a detective as being one of the key themes of archaeology in
popular culture. He describes an archaeologist as a professional detective of the past who has the
ability to reveal secrets for the greater good of society. Holtorf's description of the archaeologist as a
detective is very similar to Christie's depiction of Poirot, who is hugely observant and is very careful
to look at small details as they often impart the most information. Many of Christie's detective
characters show some archaeological traits through their careful attention to clues and artefacts alike.
Miss Marple, another of Christie's famous characters, shares these characteristics of careful
deduction though the attention paid to the small clues.
3. Spirituality

Christie's life within the archaeological world shaped not only the settings and characters for her
books but also the issues she highlights. One of the stronger influences is her love of the mystical
and mysterious. Many of Christie's books and short stories set both in the Middle East and back in
England have a decidedly otherworldly influence in which religious sects, sacrifices, ceremony, and
seances play a part. Such stories include "The Hound of Death" and "The Idol House of Astarte".
This theme was greatly strengthened by those times Christie spent in the Middle East where she was
consistently surrounded by the religious temples and spiritual history of the towns and cities they
were excavating during Mallowan's archaeological work.





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Agatha Christie

Bibliography

Books:
1. Thompson, Laura (2007), Agatha Christie: An English Mystery, London: Headline Review
2. Osborne, Charles (2001), The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie, St Martins
3. Cade, Jared (1997), Agatha Christie and the Missing Eleven Days, Peter Owen
External links:
1. Wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie
2. MysteryNet : http://christie.mysterynet.com/
3. About.com: http://history1900s.about.com/od/people/a/Agatha-Christie.htm
4. Official website: http://www.agathachristie.com/
5. Famous authors.com: http://www.famousauthors.org/agatha-christie