It was Agatha’s husband, whodunit! New book reveals the revolutionary woman behind the stories
The English writer Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days in December 1926
Historian Lucy Worsley Claims The Bestselling Author Was A Revolutionary
Her new book reveals how Christie pretended to be a good housewife
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BIOGRAPHY
AGATHA CHRISTIE
by Lucy Worsley (Hodder £25,415pp)
On a Sunday in December 1926, thousands of people scoured the Surrey countryside in search of a missing woman. The policeman hinted that he expected to find a body, but the search was fruitless. The case was as mind-boggling as any of Agatha Christie’s novels—with the added twist that the missing woman was none other than the author herself.
Christie’s 11-day disappearance seems to have been a rare outlier in the life of the best-selling writer of the 20th century. Yet author Lucy Worsley claims that behind her conventional facade, Christie was something of a revolutionary, a woman who “pretended her life as if it were ordinary, when in fact she was pushing boundaries.”
The English writer Agatha Christie (pictured) disappeared for 11 days in December 1926. Historian Lucy Worsley Claims The Bestselling Author Was A Revolutionary
Born to a wealthy family in Torquay in 1890, she was tall and elegant with no shortage of suitors, and at the age of 22 she fell for the charming but poor Archie Christie.
During the First World War she worked as a Red Cross volunteer. She resented the cocky attitude of the doctors and it is remarkable that her books contain a large number of murderous medics. Her time in a pharmacy gave her useful knowledge about how to turn people off with poison.
Agatha and Archie married in December 1914 and in her spare time she wrote her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair At Styles. It was rejected by six publishers. But in 1920, shortly after the birth of her daughter Rosalind, it was accepted.
Agatha’s books sold well from the start and she was productive. But as her career blossomed, her private life was in turmoil: Archie had told her he was in love with another woman. In December 1926 she kissed her daughter goodbye. The next morning her car was found, damaged and abandoned. Archie was the prime suspect.
Writer Dame Agatha Christie and her husband Max EL Mallowan. Agatha divorced her first husband Archie . in 1930
The search for Agatha became an international news item. She was eventually tracked down to a hotel in Harrogate. When Archie and the police arrived, she was perfectly calm, but seemed to think Archie was her brother rather than her husband. Since then, there has been a debate about what really happened. Did Agatha take revenge on Archie by faking her disappearance, or did she have amnesia? Worsley argues that she actually suffered from a mental illness caused by trauma, and that the suspicion that she tried to frame her husband is “a great injustice.”
Agatha and Archie divorced and in 1930, Agatha surprised her friends and family by marrying archaeologist Max Mallowan. He was more than ten years younger than her, but the marriage was a great success. She often accompanied him on digs, and her travels with him inspired some of her best books, including Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile.
Agatha’s detective stories “are not just addictive entertainment,” Worsley writes, “they are also a great resource for the historian,” who charts the changes during her lifetime, especially the role of women – she was very good at creating sparkling, independent female characters.
Worsley writes on her subject with fervor and affection, though her cheerful interjections from the author can be crushing; she describes Archie as “incredibly hot.” And despite her best efforts, Christie, who sold more than two billion books before her death in 1976, remains a mystery.