Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Agatha Christie
-
Standard Name: Christie, Agatha
Birth Name: Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
Married Name: Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie
Married Name: Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan
Titled: Lady Mallowan
Pseudonym: Mary Westmacott
Pseudonym: Mac Miller
Pseudonym: Nathaniel Miller
Pseudonym: Mostyn Grey
Pseudonym: Martin West
Used Form: Agatha Christie Mallowan
AC
, the Duchess of Death, produced eighty books, including sixty-six novels and detective fictions, and fourteen of short stories as well as poetry and suspense drama. At the height of her career she published two or three books a year; they have been sold and translated in more than a hundred countries, with sale reaching a billion in the original English and another billion in translation.
Lanchester, John. “The Case of Agatha Christie”. London Review of Books, Vol.
40
, No. 24, pp. 3-8.
3
Her work is identified with meticulously constructed plots and ingenious misdirection. UNESCO
reported in August 1961 that she was the world's best-selling author writing in English.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
13
Morgan, Janet. Agatha Christie: A Biography. Collins, http://Rutherford HSS.
216, 326
Her famous sleuths, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, hide their amazing ability beneath an unimpressive exterior.
In her day EJ
knew most of the London literary world. She met Agatha Christie
, whom she described as the most elegantly dressed elderly woman I have ever seen.
Jenkins, Elizabeth. The View from Downshire Hill. Michael Johnson.
148
She counted among her...
Literary Setting
Deborah Levy
This novel begins as an Agatha Christie
-style story of people (multi-national rather than English) gathered in a country house (not an English manor but a Normandy chateau) where there is an irruption of violence...
Literary responses
Ngaio Marsh
A review of detective novels in The Times (subtitled Deadlier than the Male) invoked the proud position of women among writers of this genre, citing Dorothy L. Sayers
, Agatha Christie
, Margery Allingham
Publishing
Ngaio Marsh
With this book she moved from Geoffrey Bles, who had published her first seven novels, to Collins
. She felt guilty about this move, but she joined a stable including Agatha Christie
, and...
Literary responses
Ngaio Marsh
At this date NM
's reputation in the United States stood far higher than that of Agatha Christie
.
Lewis, Margaret. Ngaio Marsh: A Life. Chatto & Windus.
111
The Observer reviewed Opening Night as NM
's best work to date.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
52010 (25 May 1951): 8
Performance of text
Louise Page
LP
's revised adaptation of Agatha Christie
's Philomel Cottage opened at Sonning near Reading, with the title changed from that of Christie's original to that of its previous screen adaptations: Love from a Stranger.
“Louise Page (1955 - )”. doollee.com: The Playwrights Database.
Performance of text
Louise Page
LP
's Agatha Christie
adaptation, then entitled Philomel Cottage (from a Christie short story of 1924 with the same title), first opened in 2004 at Leeds.
“The Fellowship Scheme. Current Fellows. Louise Page”. The Royal Literary Fund.
Literary responses
Dorothy L. Sayers
A few years after this bookappeared, in 1945, Agatha Christie
expressed disappointment at the way Wimsey's character had developed. He is a good man spoilt, who began as a piquant and surprising caricature but became...
Textual Production
Dorothy L. Sayers
Between 1928 and 1934, DLS
edited three volumes under the series title Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror. Her introductions to these collections offered a scholarly history of the genre of detective...
Textual Production
Dorothy L. Sayers
DLS
was an enthusiastic and longstanding member of the Detection Club
, a group of detective novelists who met regularly to discuss their craft. DLS
helped to establish the club, and served as its President...
Publishing
Dorothy L. Sayers
Reviews which DLS
wrote for the Sunday Times during the 1930s allowed her to comment on most of her fellow crime-writers, notably Margery Allingham
and Agatha Christie
. She provided introductions for volumes of short...
Intertextuality and Influence
Zadie Smith
ZS
was writing stories and poems at five or six, and later moved on to imitations of Agatha Christie
. During her teenage years she was a passionate devotee of the movies.
Tew, Philip. Zadie Smith. Palgrave Macmillan.
112
Smith, Zadie. “The divine Ms H”. Guardian.co.uk.
Intertextuality and Influence
Josephine Tey
JT
's Miss Pym, an amateur psychologist and best-selling author, can be seen as part of a line of spinster detectives which includes Agatha Christie
's Jane Marple and Patricia Highsmith
's Miss Silver. Miss...
Textual Production
Michelene Wandor
MW
has specialized in adapting and abridging novels for radio. Between 1980 and 2004 she adapted a wide array of fiction by women writers, including works by Jane Austen
, Charlotte Brontë
, George Eliot
Education
Fay Weldon
FW
learned to read at three: I remember . . . the way the letters suddenly made sense.
Weldon, Fay. Auto da Fay. Flamingo.
24
After her grandmother joined the family in 1942 she was able to borrow adult books from...
