Agatha Christie: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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Her characters, especially Miss Marple and Poirot, live alongside iconic detective fiction figures like Poe’s Dupin and ACD’s Sherlock Holmes. Je me suis précipité sur cette nouvelle autobiographie en espérant trouver de nouvelles informations ou photos sur Agatha Christie, mais mon attente a été relativement déçue. I found her endearing, slightly problematic at moments, fascinating, relatable, and ultimately maintaining a bit of mystery still. I was born in Reading (not great, but it could have been Slough), studied Ancient and Modern History at New College, Oxford, and I've got a PhD in art history from the University of Sussex.

Fascinating, seductive, incisive, this beautiful exploration into Christie, her life and times, is full of unique insight, eye opening detail, sharp analysis. Her life with Max Mallowan as an amateur archaeologist was just as fulfilling but she always came back to her writing (if only to pay for all the houses, trinkets and digs). Page 345: It was a lifelong intellectual conversation between two questing minds, with companionship at its heart. So why—despite all the evidence to the contrary—did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure? It is quite interesting to read of the real story of a very complex woman born during a very different age.A superlative biography of the Queen of Crime, Worsley's page-turning volume is a fitting tribute to Christie's extraordinary life.

So why - despite all the evidence to the contrary - did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure?What is not unexpected is the disdain levelled at her by male critics and directors*, who could not countenance a successful, forthright woman who enjoyed enormous, worldwide popularity for her writing. She does, though, try to remake Christie as a modern independent woman, however much Christie was herself pretty reactionary, with little sympathy for suffragette/feminist positions. Much like her BBC specials, she takes a casual tone in educating her audience with interjecting perspectives on her subject that the modern readers find relatable whilst learning. So I say…read the autobiography, which is truthfully more revelatory and amusing than Worsley’s pull quotes. Just a few chapters in and I had an urge to start reading some of the original mysteries with Lucy Worsley having reignited my enthusiasm.

Worsley's sparkling biography brings a fresh eye to Christie's life and work, firmly busting the myth that she, or her novels, were cosy. Her works have sold over 2 billion copies and her iconic detective characters have lasted the test of time. In 2002 I made a brief excursion to Glasgow Museums before coming down to London as Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces in 2003.He responds (so so perfectly) "Darling, you not only are my favourite size but always will be, expanding or contracting" I immediately thought, Agatha- stop your dithering, how can you not marry this man? Working in her bedroom, in odd corners, she was as unlike the conventional idea of the anguished author as possible. Throughout her life, Agatha would be emancipated from worrying about her weight or fretting about it. On the third day, she even failed to go to her work at the hospital, ‘because I did not dare leave my book . She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness.