Agatha Christie: the 'Queen of Crime'

Hi! Welcome to my blog ‘Intrigued Minds’. This blog is for anyone, but especially people who are interested in history, crime and a bit of mystery. This is my first ever blog post (so please bear with me). This is something new to me, but I have been wanting to do this for a while now. I wanted to combine my many passions and create something that could be of interest to other people! So, here I am. I hope you enjoy my first post and learn something new!

This first post is dedicated to the Queen of Crime: Agatha Christie (1890-1976). Christie was an English crime novelist. Poirot and Miss Marple are her two fictional detectives, who captured the hearts of many. My fascination with Christie and Poirot started around eight years ago! This was due to my English Literature teacher allowing us watch parts of the ABC Murders series. It sparked my interest in Christie and detective fiction. My fixation with Christie led to me pleading with members of my family to watch the TV series of Poirot, so they too could enter her world. The ultimate combination of history, crime and mystery works so well with literature. The costuming, music and architecture made the whole experience of LWT/ITV’s Poirot wholly fantastic. I already have quite a significant collection of Christie’s books and David Suchet’s Poirot DVDs. Within the last two years, my mother and I attended ‘The Mousetrap’ at St. Martin’s Theatre in London’s West End. It was two hours and fifteen minutes long, and an enlightening experience. More recently, I visited Poirot’s home - known to fans as Whitehaven Mansions. The actual name of the building used in every episode is called Florin court, it still retains its art deco exterior.

Hailed the ‘Queen of Crime’, Christie has been outsold ONLY by the Bible and Shakespeare. There is no-one quite like her. Her personality and novels fascinated thousands, and still inspire the arm-chair detectives among us. Poirot and Marple (amongst others) presented escapism, amongst the golden age of detective fiction. They still do this 98 years on, following the publication of her first novel ‘Mysterious Affair at Styles’ in 1920. In her lifetime, she wrote around 66 detective novels and 14 short stories. Her only play ‘The Mousetrap’ has been credited as the longest running play EVER in the West End. It’s opening night on the 25th November in 1925 was such a success. Consecutively running for 66 years with over 27,000 performances, the Mousetrap is not one to miss. Christie also wrote six romance novels under her pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Amongst all this, the Guinness World Records ranked her as the best-selling novelist of all time. She has sold roughly 3 billion novels, that have been translated into at least 103 languages. The absolutely terrifying and intriguing ‘And Then There Were None’ made 100 million sales to date. This makes it the WORLDS best-selling murder mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. Her many, many achievements are completely overwhelming but extremely deserved. Here are a few facts you may not know…

During December of 1926, Christie vanished from her Berkshire home. It was hugely publicized – and created the perfect setting for a ‘whodunit’. The magnitude of this case was unparalleled: the most popular crime novelist possibly dead. Her disappearance totaled to 11 days, and caused one of the biggest man hunts in recorded history. 1,000 police officers armed with an additional 15,000 volunteered fans searched throughout Berkshire. It has been recorded that for the first time, airplanes were also involved in the man-hunt. Britain’s other favorite crime writers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) and Dorothy L. Sayers (creator of the Lord Peter Wimsey series) were recruited to help solve Christie’s disappearance. After mass searching, the police found her car, which was abandoned on a steep slope in Guildford.

In 1926, her sixth novel ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ was flying off the shelves. The tabloids had a field day whilst addressing theories about her disappearance. Rumours circulated that it could have been a publicity stunt to draw attraction to her new novel – others believed it could have been her ex-husband that murdered her. After seven days, Christie was the face of the New York Times! The news had circulated worldwide, and stumped the minds of many professionals and arm chair detectives. After 11 full days of excitement and fear, the crime novelist was found. Christie was hiding in the Old Swan hotel in Harrogate, but she herself could not help the police. It was widely circulated that she did not remember anything, and was unsure to as why she was there. The police concluded that whilst on route to London – she had crashed her car. She then boarded a train to Harrogate, North Yorkshire and found a hotel. It was later revealed that whilst Christie checked in, she used the name of her husband’s lover (Theresa Neele). There have been a multitude of theories as to why Christie would not remember her own disappearing act. From her first husband to her biographer, the most popular suggestion believes she could have suffered from amnesia. There are no known answers to her motives and disappearance that day, just endless speculation.

Something else which you may not know is that one of Christie’s greatest passions was archeology. Her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan, was a distinguished archeologist in his field. They both met on an expedition Mallowan was leading in Iraq. Through her husband’s introduction, she developed a fascination of her own. She frequently accompanied him on his expeditions and trips all over the world. Christie fell in love with the sites, and often took photographs of the finds. These are now exhibited in the British Museum. Her experience abroad often came as inspiration for her novels. 'Murder in Mesopotamia' (1935) and 'Death of the Nile' (1937) are both set in the Middle East and heavily inspired by her time travelling. The novels set in Devon contrasted with novels set in Egypt, and the readers enjoyed both sceneries. The novels set abroad often appealed more so to the readers as a form of escapism, as these were places that many had heard of, but never had the possibility to visit. Christie truly presented new-found excitement through her words.

One of Christie’s greatest love affairs was with poison. Christie held numerous jobs in which she handled poison, and this allowed her to acquire knowledge about it. She would not have had access to it otherwise. She worked as a nurse during World War Two, and became an expert in all things poison. This life-time interest and crafted expertise then allowed her to dabble with it as a weapon in her novels. In 1920, her first novel ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ exposed her trademark. Her first victim was killed by nonetheless, her favourite poison arsenic.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the few facts I have written about Agatha Christie, and I’m sure there will more to come involving her. If you haven’t read one of her books, I hope this inspires you the tiniest bit to read one. They are truly a pleasure to read. Thank you for taking the time and interest to read this. I hope you have learnt something new!

Me outside Poirot's home - Whitehaven Mansions aka. Florin Court

A photo of mine from the night I saw The Mousetrap at St. Martins!

Me outside St. Martins!

A photo of mine from visiting Florin Court