TIE S I R H C OF MYSTERY
A G A THA A M A ST E R
Agatha Christie (born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller) was born on September 15th, 1890 in Torquay, Devon, England. Christie was homeschooled by her father, an American. Her mother wanted him to wait until Agatha was eight for her to learn to read, but the determined little girl taught herself by the age of five, signaling her lifelong love affair with the written word. Christie’s father died when she was only eleven, which put her and her mother into financial uncertainty. They were able to overcome it, and Agatha continued her pursuits of music and writing into her early adulthood, skillfully playing the piano and writing short stories. When Agatha was twenty, she and her mother went to Cairo to spend “the season” where she found her social niche, attended parties, and found herself fielding marriage proposals. In 1912, Agatha met Archie Christie, an aviator, and the two had a whirlwind courtship that led to their marriage on Christmas Eve 1914 while Archie was on leave from the French front of World War I. 8
During the war, Agatha wrote her first detective story to win a bet with her sister and to relieve the boredom from her day job at the hospital dispensary. Her debut novel, in which Poirot makes his first appearance, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was accepted by The Bodley Head publishers in 1919 and published in 1920. They then contracted Agatha for five more novels. In the original manuscript, Christie had the story end in a courtroom. Her publisher, John Lane, suggested it end with a reveal in the library, which became a signature mystery device for years to come. After the war, Agatha and Archie welcomed daughter Rosalind in 1919. Artistically, Agatha experimented with different types of mystery and thriller stories, creating her well-known characters Tommy & Tuppence and Miss Marple. After several years of feeling she was being taken advantage of, Christie switched publishers to William Collins and Sons. Archie and Agatha traveled across what was then the British Empire to promote the Empire Exhibition of 1924. Upon their return, Agatha’s mother died and
Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – PlayGuide
