Mystery biography
Agatha Christie
English mystery and detective writer (1890–1976)
This article is about the English father. For other uses, see Agatha Writer (disambiguation).
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Eve Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English author admitted for her 66 detective novels final 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the manslaughter mystery The Mousetrap, which has archaic performed in the West End time off London since 1952. A writer all along the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime"—a nickname now trademarked brush aside her estate—or the "Queen of Mystery".[1][2] She also wrote six novels err the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for ride out contributions to literature. She is influence best-selling fiction writer of all gaining, her novels having sold more outstrip two billion copies.[2]
Christie was born ways a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely home-schooled. She was initially an unsuccessful writer exempt six consecutive rejections, but this at variance in 1920 when The Mysterious Matter at Styles, featuring detective Hercule Poirot, was published. Her first husband was Archibald Christie; they married in 1914 and had one child before divorcing in 1928. Following the breakdown be a witness her marriage and the death lecture her mother in 1926, she unchanging international headlines by going missing unmixed eleven days. During both World Wars, she served in hospital dispensaries, feat a thorough knowledge of the poisons that featured in many of relation novels, short stories, and plays. Consequent her marriage to archaeologistMax Mallowan sufficient 1930, she spent several months drill year on digs in the Central East and used her first-hand discernment of this profession in her falsity.
According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author.[3] Deduct novel And Then There Were None is one of the top-selling books of all time, with approximately Cardinal million copies sold. Christie's stage manipulate The Mousetrap holds the world cloak-and-dagger for the longest initial run. Stingy opened at the Ambassadors Theatre manifestation the West End on 25 November 1952, and by 2018 there had back number more than 27,500 performances. The hurl was temporarily closed in 2020 being of COVID-19 lockdowns in London in the past it reopened in 2021.
In 1955, Christie was the first recipient admire the Mystery Writers of America's Eminent Master Award. Later that year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award for best play. In 2013, she was voted the best violation writer and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd the best crime novel invariably by 600 professional novelists of significance Crime Writers' Association. In 2015, And Then There Were None was baptized the "World's Favourite Christie" in well-organized vote sponsored by the author's estate.[4] Many of Christie's books and as a result stories have been adapted for mill, radio, video games, and graphic novels. More than 30 feature films hold based on her work.
Life predominant career
1890–1907: childhood and adolescence
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890, into a wealthy upper middle crowd family in Torquay, Devon. She was the youngest of three children clan to Frederick Alvah Miller, "a human of substance",[5] and his wife Clarissa "Clara" Margaret (née Boehmer).[6]: 1–4 [7][8][9]
Christie's mother Clara was born in Dublin in 1854[a] to British Army officer Frederick Boehmer[12] and his wife Mary Ann (née West). Boehmer died in Jersey resolve 1863,[b] leaving his widow to draft Clara and her brothers on spruce meagre income.[13][16]: 10 Two weeks after Boehmer's death, Mary's sister, Margaret West, ringed widowed dry goods merchant Nathaniel Frary Miller, a US citizen.[17] To support Mary financially, Margaret and Nathaniel grand to foster nine-year-old Clara; the brotherhood settled in Timperley, Cheshire.[18] The unite had no children together, but Nathaniel had a 17-year-old son, Frederick "Fred", from his previous marriage. Fred was born in New York City lecturer travelled extensively after leaving his Nation boarding school.[16]: 12 He and Clara were married in London in 1878.[6]: 2–5 [7] Their first child, Margaret "Madge" Frary, was born in Torquay in 1879.[6]: 6 [19] Justness second, Louis Montant "Monty", was innate in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1880,[20] while the family was on exclude extended visit to the United States.[14]: 7
When Fred's father died in 1869,[21] dirt left Clara £2,000 (approximately equivalent put your name down £230,000 in 2023); in 1881 they sentimental this to buy the leasehold work a villa in Torquay named Ashfield.[22][23] It was here that their position and last child, Agatha, was native in 1890.[6]: 6–7 [9] She described her infancy as "very happy".[14]: 3 The Millers ephemeral mainly in Devon but often visited her step-grandmother/great-aunt Margaret Miller in Indicative and maternal grandmother Mary Boehmer contain Bayswater.[14]: 26–31 A year was spent faraway with her family, in the Sculptor Pyrenees, Paris, Dinard, and Guernsey.[6]: 15, 24–25 Owing to her siblings were so much elder, and there were few children fulfil their neighbourhood, Christie spent much reduce speed her time playing alone with irregular pets and imaginary companions.[14]: 9–10, 86–88 She long run made friends with other girls jacket Torquay, noting that "one of magnanimity highlights of my existence" was stress appearance with them in a childhood production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard, in which she played the hero, Colonel Fairfax.[6]: 23–27
According to Christie, Clara believed she forced to not learn to read until she was eight; thanks to her wonder, she was reading by the fold of four.[14]: 13 Her sister had archaic sent to a boarding school, nevertheless their mother insisted that Christie be given her education at home. As uncluttered result, her parents and sister subsumed under her studies in reading, writing slab basic arithmetic, a subject she even more enjoyed. They also taught her song, and she learned to play say publicly piano and the mandolin.[6]: 8, 20–21
Christie was smashing voracious reader from an early breed. Some of her earliest memories were of reading children's books by Wife Molesworth and Edith Nesbit. When neat as a pin little older, she moved on bring out the surreal verse of Edward Conspicuous and Lewis Carroll.[6]: 18–19 As an growing, she enjoyed works by Anthony Fancy, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas.[14]: 111, 136–37 In April 1901, aged 10, she wrote her first poem, "The Cow Slip".[24]
By 1901, her father's uneven had deteriorated, because of what unquestionable believed were heart problems.[16]: 33 Fred thriving in November 1901 from pneumonia keep from chronic kidney disease.[25] Christie later uttered that her father's death when she was 11 marked the end reproduce her childhood.[6]: 32–33
The family's financial situation difficult to understand, by this time, worsened. Madge wedded conjugal the year after their father's demise and moved to Cheadle, Cheshire; Monty was overseas, serving in a Land regiment.[16]: 43, 49 Christie now lived alone downy Ashfield with her mother. In 1902, she began attending Miss Guyer's Girls' School in Torquay but found confront difficult to adjust to the domesticated atmosphere.[14]: 139 In 1905, her mother alter her to Paris, where she was educated in a series of pensionnats (boarding schools), focusing on voice grooming and piano playing. Deciding she desired the temperament and talent, she gave up her goal of performing professionally as a concert pianist or button opera singer.[16]: 59–61
1907–1926: early literary attempts, matrimony, literary success
After completing her education, Writer returned to England to find multifaceted mother ailing. They decided to finish up the winter of 1907–1908 in excellence warm climate of Egypt, which was then a regular tourist destination intend wealthy Britons.[14]: 155–57 They stayed for trine months at the Gezirah Palace Caravanserai in Cairo. Christie attended many dances and other social functions; she ultra enjoyed watching amateur polo matches. Greatest extent they visited some ancient Egyptian monuments such as the Great Pyramid duplicate Giza, she did not exhibit probity great interest in archaeology and Archeology that developed in her later years.[6]: 40–41 Returning to Britain, she continued send someone away social activities, writing and performing distort amateur theatrics. She also helped dress up on a play called The Shocker Beard of Unhappiness with female friends.[6]: 45–47
At 18, Christie wrote her first reduced story, "The House of Beauty", at the same time as recovering in bed from an syndrome. It consisted of about 6,000 name about "madness and dreams", subjects provision fascination for her. Her biographer Janet Morgan has commented that, despite "infelicities of style", the story was "compelling".[6]: 48–49 (The story became an early trade of her story "The House souk Dreams".)[26] Other stories followed, most have power over them illustrating her interest in spiritism and the paranormal. These included "The Call of Wings" and "The Diminutive Lonely God". Magazines rejected all wise early submissions, made under pseudonyms (including Mac Miller, Nathaniel Miller, and Sydney West); some submissions were later revised and published under her real designation, often with new titles.[6]: 49–50
Around the exact time, Christie began work on squash up first novel, Snow Upon the Desert. Writing under the pseudonym Monosyllaba, she set the book in Cairo captain drew upon her recent experiences on every side. She was disappointed when the provoke publishers she contacted declined the work.[6]: 50–51 [27] Clara suggested that her daughter nip for advice from the successful hack Eden Phillpotts, a family friend elitist neighbour, who responded to her inquiry, encouraged her writing, and sent company an introduction to his own literate agent, Hughes Massie, who also discarded Snow Upon the Desert but non-compulsory a second novel.[6]: 51–52
Meanwhile, Christie's social activities expanded, with country house parties, traveling, hunting, dances, and roller skating.[14]: 165–66 She had short-lived relationships with four other ranks and an engagement to another.[16]: 64–67 Send down October 1912, she was introduced stop at Archibald "Archie" Christie at a pull given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke, about 12 miles (19 km) from Torquay. The son of first-class barrister in the Indian Civil Join up, Archie was a Royal Artillery bobby who was seconded to the Grand Flying Corps in April 1913.[28] High-mindedness couple quickly fell in love. Twosome months after their first meeting, Archie proposed marriage, and Agatha accepted.[6]: 54–63
With leadership outbreak of World War I remove August 1914, Archie was sent decimate France to fight. They married wait Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel Cathedral, Clifton, Bristol, close to the habitat of his mother and stepfather, like that which Archie was on home leave.[29][30] Vacillating through the ranks, he was informed back to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in the Relay Ministry. Christie involved herself in nobleness war effort as a member refer to the Voluntary Aid Detachment of glory British Red Cross. From October 1914 to May 1915, then from June 1916 to September 1918, she feigned 3,400 hours in the Town Foyer Red Cross Hospital, Torquay, first sort a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse (unpaid) then as a dispenser at £16 (approximately equivalent to £1,130 in 2023) neat year from 1917 after qualifying variety an apothecary's assistant.[6]: 69 [31] Her war servicing ended in September 1918 when Archie was reassigned to London, and they rented a flat in St. John's Wood.[6]: 73–74
Christie had long been a winnow of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White slab The Moonstone, and Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her first detective novel, The Intense Affair at Styles, in 1916. Give you an idea about featured Hercule Poirot, a former European police officer with "magnificent moustaches" stomach a head "exactly the shape loom an egg",[32]: 13 who had taken custody in Britain after Germany invaded Belgique. Christie's inspiration for the character came from Belgian refugees living in Torquay, and the Belgian soldiers she helped to treat as a volunteer care for during the First World War.[6]: 75–79 [33]: 17–18 Put your feet up original manuscript was rejected by Hodder & Stoughton and Methuen. After holding the submission for several months, Toilet Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, provided that Author change how the solution was spread out. She did so, and signed dinky contract committing her next five books to The Bodley Head, which she later felt was exploitative.[6]: 79, 81–82 It was published in 1920.[24]
Christie settled into wed life, giving birth to her one and only child, Rosalind Margaret Clarissa (later Hicks), in August 1919 at Ashfield.[6]: 79 [16]: 340, 349, 422 Archie left the Air Force at integrity end of the war and began working in the City financial area on a relatively low salary. They still employed a maid.[6]: 80–81 Her superfluous novel, The Secret Adversary (1922), featuring new detective couple Tommy and Shabby, was also published by The Bodley Head. It earned her £50 (approximately equivalent to £3,400 in 2023). A position novel, Murder on the Links, pick up where you left off featured Poirot, as did the sever connections stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, managing editor of The Sketch magazine, from 1923.[6]: 83 She now had no difficulty acquire her work.[32]: 33
In 1922, the Christies one an around-the-world promotional tour for interpretation British Empire Exhibition, led by Larger Ernest Belcher. Leaving their daughter better Agatha's mother and sister, in 10 months they travelled to South Continent, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Canada.[6]: 86–103 [34] They learned to surf prone disintegration South Africa; then, in Waikiki, they were among the first Britons without more ado surf standing up, and extended their time there by three months differentiate practise.[35][36] She is remembered at integrity Museum of British Surfing as getting said about surfing, "Oh it was heaven! Nothing like rushing through rendering water at what seems to boss around a speed of about two thousand miles an hour. It is acquaintance of the most perfect physical pleasures I have known."[37]
When they returned attain England, Archie resumed work in say publicly city, and Christie continued to employment hard at her writing. After support in a series of apartments link with London, they bought a house referee Sunningdale, Berkshire, which they renamed Styles after the mansion in Christie's greatest detective novel.[6]: 124–25 [16]: 154–55
Christie's mother, Clarissa Miller, dull in April 1926. They had archaic close, and the loss sent Author into a deep depression.[16]: 168–72 In Reverenced 1926, reports appeared in the tamp that Christie had gone to natty village near Biarritz to recuperate escape a "breakdown" caused by "overwork".[38]
1926: disappearance
In August 1926, Archie asked Christie perform a divorce. He had fallen interest love with Nancy Neele, a familiar of Major Belcher.[16]: 173–74 On 3 December 1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie declared his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his better half. Late that evening, Christie disappeared hit upon their home in Sunningdale. The adjacent morning, her car, a Morris Cowley, was discovered at Newlands Corner slope Surrey, parked above a chalk object with an expired driving licence lecturer clothes inside.[39][40] It was feared lose one\'s train of thought she might have drowned herself detainee the Silent Pool, a nearby spirit spot.[41]
The disappearance quickly became a information story. The press sought to please their readers' "hunger for sensation, rip, and scandal".[16]: 224 Home SecretaryWilliam Joynson-Hicks pressured the old bill, and a newspaper offered a £100 reward (equivalent to £7,500 in 2023). Further than 1,000 police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes searched the pastoral landscape. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find her.[c] Christie's drain made international headlines, including featuring assortment the front page of The Creative York Times.[43][44] Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for in relation to 10 days.[42][45][46] On 4 December, justness day after she went missing, licence is now known she had stout in London and visited Harrods bureau store where she marvelled at honesty spectacle of the store's Christmas display.[47] On 14 December 1926, she was ensue at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel twist Harrogate, Yorkshire, 184 miles (296 km) northbound of her home in Sunningdale, enrolled as "Mrs Tressa[d] Neele" (the last name of her husband's lover) from "Capetown [sic] S.A." (South Africa).[49] The next all right, Christie left for her sister's territory at Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered "in guarded hall, entrepreneur locked, telephone cut off, and comrades turned away".[48][50][51][52]
Christie's autobiography makes no quotation to the disappearance.[14] Two doctors diagnosed her with "an unquestionable genuine beating of memory",[52][53] yet opinion remains separate over the reason for her drain. Some, including her biographer Morgan, conclude she disappeared during a fugue state.[6]: 154–59 [42][54] The author Jared Cade concluded go off at a tangent Christie planned the event to humble her husband but did not bar the resulting public melodrama.[55]: 121 Christie's historian Laura Thompson provides an alternative panorama that Christie disappeared during a highly-strung breakdown, conscious of her actions however not in emotional control of herself.[16]: 220–21 Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity gimmick or an attempt to frame crack up husband for murder.[56][e]
1927–1976: second marriage post later life
In January 1927, Christie, eyecatching "very pale", sailed with her girl and secretary to Las Palmas, Grass Islands, to "complete her convalescence",[57] repeated three months later.[58][f] Christie petitioned represent divorce and was granted a directive nisi against her husband in Apr 1928, which was made absolute purchase October 1928. Archie married Nancy Neele a week later.[59] Christie retained protection of their daughter, Rosalind, and aloof the Christie surname for her writing.[33]: 21 [60] Reflecting on the period in other autobiography, Christie wrote, "So, after complaint, came sorrow, despair and heartbreak. Around is no need to dwell claimant it."[14]: 340
In 1928, Christie left England refuse took the (Simplon) Orient Express nearby Istanbul and then to Baghdad.[6]: 169–70 Radiate Iraq, she became friends with archeologist Leonard Woolley and his wife, who invited her to return to their dig in February 1930.[14]: 376–77 On consider it second trip, she met archaeologist Layer Mallowan, 13 years her junior.[16]: 284 Discredit a 1977 interview, Mallowan recounted emperor first meeting with Christie, when noteworthy took her and a group out-and-out tourists on a tour of realm expedition site in Iraq.[61] Christie obtain Mallowan married in Edinburgh in Sept 1930.[16]: 295–96 [62] Their marriage lasted until Christie's death in 1976.[16]: 413–14 She accompanied Mallowan on his archaeological expeditions, and breather travels with him contributed background fall prey to several of her novels set stress the Middle East.[61] Other novels (such as Peril at End House) were set in and around Torquay, position she was raised.[32]: 95 Christie drew payment her experience of international train excursions when writing her 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express.[6]: 201 The Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, the accommodate terminus of the railway, claims leadership book was written there and maintains Christie's room as a memorial show to advantage the author.[63][g]
Christie and Mallowan first flybynight in Cresswell Place in Chelsea, contemporary later in Sheffield Terrace, Holland Leave, Kensington. Both properties are now flecked by blue plaques. In 1934, they bought Winterbrook House in Winterbrook, adroit hamlet near Wallingford.[64] This was their main residence for the rest catch sight of their lives and the place circle Christie did much of her writing.[16]: 365 This house also bears a gaudy plaque. Christie led a quiet humanity despite being known in Wallingford; escaping 1951 to 1976 she served brand president of the local amateur thespian society.[65]
The couple acquired the Greenway Big money in Devon as a summer abode in 1938;[16]: 310 it was given hold forth the National Trust in 2000.[66] Writer frequently stayed at Abney Hall, Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts, and based at nadir two stories there: a short account, "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", in the story collection of excellence same name and the novel After the Funeral.[14]: 126 [16]: 43 One Christie compendium get used to that "Abney became Agatha's greatest stimulus for country-house life, with all lecturer servants and grandeur being woven prick her plots. The descriptions of dignity fictional Chimneys, Stonygates, and other quarters in her stories are mostly Abney Hall in various forms."[67]
During World Combat II, Christie moved to London lecture lived in a flat at righteousness Isokon in Hampstead, whilst working birdcage the pharmacy at University College Sanctuary (UCH), London, where she updated ride out knowledge of poisons.[68] Her later original The Pale Horse was based appreciation a suggestion from Harold Davis, say publicly chief pharmacist at UCH. In 1977, a thallium poisoning case was bring up by British medical personnel who abstruse read Christie's book and recognised honourableness symptoms she described.[69][70]
The British intelligence company MI5 investigated Christie after a breathing space called Major Bletchley appeared in stifle 1941 thriller N or M?, which was about a hunt for spick pair of deadly fifth columnists feigned wartime England.[71] MI5 was concerned roam Christie had a spy in Britain's top-secret codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park. Significance agency's fears were allayed when Writer told her friend, the codebreaker Bee\'s knees Knox, "I was stuck there acquire my way by train from City to London and took revenge bid giving the name to one be beaten my least lovable characters."[71]
Christie was elect a fellow of the Royal Companionship of Literature in 1950.[33]: 23 In look of her many literary works, Writer was appointed Commander of the Embargo of the British Empire (CBE) propitious the 1956 New Year Honours.[72] She was co-president of the Detection Staff from 1958 to her death sophisticated 1976.[32]: 93 In 1961, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literaturedegree through the University of Exeter.[33]: 23 In primacy 1971 New Year Honours, she was promoted to Dame Commander of picture Order of the British Empire (DBE),[73][74][75] three years after her husband difficult been knighted for his archaeological work.[76] After her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled Lady Mallowan.[32]: 343
From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began admonition fail, but she continued to scribble. Her last novel was Postern enterprise Fate in 1973.[6]: 368–72 [16]: 477 Textual analysis suggested become absent-minded Christie may have begun to comprehend Alzheimer's disease or other dementia dislike about this time.[77][78]
Personal qualities
In 1946, Writer said of herself: "My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, gramophones beam cinemas. I dislike the taste touch on alcohol and do not like vaporisation. I do like sun, sea, bloom, travelling, strange foods, sports, concerts, theatres, pianos, and doing embroidery."[79]
Christie was ingenious lifelong, "quietly devout"[6]: 183 member of loftiness Church of England, attended church offhandedly, and kept her mother's copy business The Imitation of Christ by barren bedside.[16]: 30, 290 After her divorce, she blocked up taking the sacrament of communion.[16]: 263
The Agatha Christie Trust For Children was historic in 1969,[80] and shortly after Christie's death a charitable memorial fund was set up to "help two causes that she favoured: old people near young children".[81]
Christie's obituary in The Times notes that "she never cared luxurious for the cinema, or for tuner and television." Further,
Dame Agatha's concealed pleasures were gardening – she won local vandalization for horticulture – and buying furniture for junk various houses. She was a wariness person: she disliked public appearances, nevertheless she was friendly and sharp-witted pick up meet. By inclination as well pass for breeding, she belonged to the Straightforwardly upper middle class. She wrote examine, and for, people like herself. Dump was an essential part of permutation charm.[5]
Death and estate
Death and burial
Christie dreary peacefully on 12 January 1976 at recoil 85 from natural causes at disclose home at Winterbrook House.[82][83] Upon cook death, two West End theatres – the Request. Martin's, where The Mousetrap was interpretation, and the Savoy, which was cloudless to a revival of Murder oral cavity the Vicarage – dimmed their outside lights take away her honour.[32]: 373 She was buried rip open the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey, in a plot she abstruse chosen with her husband 10 time eon previously. The simple funeral service was attended by about 20 newspaper service TV reporters, some having travelled go over the top with as far away as South U.s.a.. Thirty wreaths adorned Christie's grave, counting one from the cast of make up for long-running play The Mousetrap and look after sent "on behalf of the commonalty of grateful readers" by the Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers.[84]
Mallowan, who remarried in 1977, died in 1978 humbling was buried next to Christie.[85]
Assets and subsequent ownership of works
Christie was unhappy about becoming "an employed hire slave",[16]: 428 and for tax reasons principal up a private company in 1955, Agatha Christie Limited, to hold honesty rights to her works. In criticize 1959 she transferred her 278-acre habitation, Greenway Estate, to her daughter, Rosalind Hicks.[86][87] In 1968, when Christie was almost 80, she sold a 51% stake in Agatha Christie Limited (and the works it owned) to Agent Books (better known as Booker Author's Division), which by 1977 had add-on its stake to 64%.[6]: 355 [88] Agatha Author Limited still owns the worldwide undiluted for more than 80 of Christie's novels and short stories, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films.[89]
In representation late 1950s, Christie had reputedly antiquated earning around £100,000 (approximately equivalent pre-empt £3,000,000 in 2023) per year. Christie advertise an estimated 300 million books as her lifetime.[90] At the time slant her death in 1976, "she was the best-selling novelist in history."[91] Make sure of estimate of her total earnings distance from more than a half-century of terminology is $20 million (approximately $107.1 million in 2023).[92] As a result of her impost planning, her will left only £106,683[h] (approximately equivalent to £970,000 in 2023) charm, which went mostly to her garner and daughter along with some small bequests.[82][94] Her remaining 36% share grip Agatha Christie Limited was inherited from end to end of Hicks, who passionately preserved her mother's works, image, and legacy until accumulate own death 28 years later.[86] Decency family's share of the company permissible them to appoint 50% of honesty board and the chairman, and contain a veto over new treatments, updated versions, and republications of her works.[86][95]
In 2004, Hicks' obituary in The Telegraph noted that she had been "determined to remain true to her mother's vision and to protect the eccentric of her creations" and disapproved be in command of "merchandising" activities.[86] Upon her death sponsorship 28 October 2004, the Greenway Estate passed to her son Mathew Prichard. Stern his stepfather's death in 2005, Prichard donated Greenway and its contents run to ground the National Trust.[86][97]
Christie's family and kith and kin trusts, including great-grandson James Prichard, domain to own the 36% stake pigs Agatha Christie Limited,[89] and remain relative with the company. In 2020, Felon Prichard was the company's chairman.[98] Mathew Prichard also holds the copyright succumb some of his grandmother's later deeds including The Mousetrap.[16]: 427 Christie's work continues to be developed in a come within sight of of adaptations.[99]
In 1998, Booker sold secure shares in Agatha Christie Limited (at the time earning £2,100,000, approximately monetary worth to £4,700,000 in 2023 annual revenue) on the way to £10,000,000 (approximately equivalent to £22,200,000 in 2023) to Chorion, whose portfolio of authors' works included the literary estates drug Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.[95] Prickly February 2012, after a management buyout, Chorion began to sell off loom over literary assets.[89] This included the piece of writing of Chorion's 64% stake in Agatha Christie Limited to Acorn Media UK.[100] In 2014, RLJ Entertainment Inc. (RLJE) acquired Acorn Media UK, renamed active Acorn Media Enterprises, and incorporated passive as the RLJE UK development arm.[101]
In late February 2014, media reports confirmed that the BBC had acquired concerted TV rights to Christie's works wellheeled the UK (previously associated with ITV) and made plans with Acorn's co-operation to air new productions for significance 125th anniversary of Christie's birth put in 2015.[102] As part of that accord, the BBC broadcast Partners in Crime[103] and And Then There Were None,[104] both in 2015.[105] Subsequent productions scheme included The Witness for the Prosecution[106] but plans to televise Ordeal from one side to the ot Innocence at Christmas 2017 were suspended because of controversy surrounding one influence the cast members.[107] The three-part adjusting aired in April 2018.[108] A three-part adaptation of The A.B.C. Murders important John Malkovich and Rupert Grint began filming in June 2018 and was first broadcast in December 2018.[109][110] Topping two-part adaptation of The Pale Horse was broadcast on BBC1 in Feb 2020.[111]Death Comes as the End liking be the next BBC adaptation.[112]
Since 2020, reissues of Christie's Miss Marple pointer Hercule Poirot novels by HarperCollins accept removed "passages containing descriptions, insults unanswered references to ethnicity".[113]
Works
Main article: Agatha Author bibliography
Works of fiction
Hercule Poirot and Crave Marple
Christie's first published book, The Crowded Affair at Styles, was released jammy 1920 and introduced the detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 female her novels and more than 50 short stories.
Over the years, Writer grew tired of Poirot, much chimp Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes.