Essay: Explore Agatha Christie’s Fascinating Life: The Dame with 2 Husbands and 100+ Novels

Runner-up to Shakespeare as the best selling writer of all time, Agatha Christie had an interesting life. Being a household name is just one of her various accomplishments along with being granted the title of Dame, the female equivalent to the rank of a knight in England awarded to an individual, by the Queen, for valuable work and contributions over a long period of time, in any activity. Through her many novels, two husbands and well-deserved fame, Agatha Christie had a life worth writing about.
Her father, Frederick, was an American and her mother, Clarissa, was English. Their family resided in England where they had their 3 children. First, Margaret in 1879, then Louis in 1880, and finally Agatha in 1890. Their mother didn’t want Agatha to learn to read till she was 8 but she taught herself to by age 5. A couple years later in 1901, when she was 11, her father died. It wasn’t until Agatha was 24 that she would get another impactful male in her life. On Christmas Eve of 1914, she married Archibald Christie. While he was sent off to fight in the first World War, she stayed back and worked as a nurse to treat wounded soldiers. Partly as a distraction from her husband being away, she began some of her writing. This is when she conceived the idea of Hercule Prior, the main character in most of her best-selling novels. The idea of him based off of Belgian refugees she had seen but twisted it slightly and turned him into a former Belgian policeman. In August 1919, after Archibald had returned back to Agatha, she gave birth to their only child, Rosalind. That same year Agatha also published her first manuscript and was asked for 5 more books. After her mother passed away in 1926 she became deeply depressed which, in turn, put a strain on her marriage with Archibald. This resulted in him falling in love with a family friend and beginning an affair. With the already overwhelming news of her mother’s passing in addition to her cheating husband, she felt it was all too much and ran away. She was reported missing and was searched for by many, until a few days later when she was found at a hotel, under the alias of Archibald’s new lover’s name. After being found she returned back to her home and two years later, in 1928, ultimately, divorced Archibald and left town with Rosalind.
Agatha’s novel fame began around the year of her mother’s death and the start of her first husband’s affair. Even though she first published in 1919, with the book The Mysterious Affair at Styles, she didn’t get much recognition until a few years later in 1926, from her book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. To this day she has published almost 100 pieces including 60 full-length detective novels, 19 short mysteries, and 14 detective story plays. The dominant idea that she used in her writing was murder mysteries in the British Upper Class with many suspects, solved by Hercule Prior along with the Scotland Yard. After gaining fame, Agatha started to feel the pressure of being The Agatha Christie and wanted to be able to write freely without the constraint of her reputation. She created a pen-name, Mary Westmacott, so that she could continue to publish but not be as well known. Under this name, she published about 6 romantic novels, nonfiction works, and poetry. Overall, she has sold over 100 million copies and has been translated into roughly 100 languages. Some of her most well-known novels are The Mousetrap, And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, and Witness For the Prosecution.
A big dream of Agatha’s was always to ride on the Orient Express, a train that traveled across Europe, starting in England, toward the Middle East, ending in either Athens or Istanbul. She finally accomplished that dream in 1928 when she took the train from London. Traveling across many countries she made her way into Iraq where she was invited on an archeological dig. The following year she was invited back and that was when she met her second husband, Max Mallowan. They quickly bonded over their mutual “relaxedness” in each others company. In 1930, they got married and started the rest of their lives together, along with her daughter Rosalind. The three of them fell into a routine of writing and traveling together. This made them feel more productive but still gave them the freedom that traveling does. Agatha wrote about one or two chapters in the mornings and finished about 2- 3 books per year. Around this time, in her writings, you can see the Middle Eastern atmosphere affecting and making appearances in her stories. In 1939, when World War II began, Max was sent to help the war effort. Agatha, again, stayed behind along with Rosalind and volunteered at a hospital. With her husband being away and entertainment being limited during the war, Agatha was able to write and publish many more books.
Once the war ended Max returned back to Agatha and Rosalind. At this time, Agatha began to write less because she had realized how much it drained her and she also had many other jobs to work on and complete. In America, someone had discovered that she was the true author behind the Mary Westmacott publications and so Agatha also lost her freedom of writing without pressure. Her next few years were spent working on different projects and productions. Agatha’s last public appearance was in 1974 at the opening night of the original film of Murder on the Orient Express. Two years later, in 1976, at the age of 85, Agatha died of natural causes. Her spirit lives on through her countless exceptional novels. In her late life, it is written that she had said “…Thank God for my good life, and for all the love that has been given to me.”