Agatha Christie : an elusive woman / Lucy Worsley.

A new, fascinating account of the life of Agatha Christie from celebrated literary and cultural historian Lucy Worsley.

"Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was."

Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Her life is fascinating for its mysteries and its passions and, as Lucy Worsley says, "She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern." 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.

So why--despite all the evidence to the contrary--did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure?

She was born in 1890 into a world that had its own rules about what women could and couldn't do. Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman.

With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was--truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Agatha Christie (1890--1976) was a modernist, an iconoclast, and a groundbreaker, according to this excellent biography from historian Worsley (The Austen Girls). Worsley argues that Christie's public image as a quiet Edwardian lady who happens to scribble mysteries was a "carefully crafted" persona, made in order to "conceal her real self" and her unconventional and oft-daring life: she threw herself into nursing work and archeological digs, was a divorced single mother, married a much younger man, loved fast cars, and built an extraordinary career. Born into a well-off family, Christie was a child full of joy who grew up to create a "character in which she could do what she wanted" and rally against the "restrictive social customs" forced upon upper-middle-class women. Worsley offers close readings of Christie's work, including the spinster character Miss Marple, who may have "stood for Agatha's own self." As well, she presents a careful reframe of the novelist's famous 1926 disappearance, positioning it as a turning point in which she "lost her way of life and her sense of self," rather than the media-constructed narrative that it was a "jealous... attention-seeking" move. Drawing on personal letters and modern criticism, Worsley manages to make her subject feel fresh and new. This is a must-read for Christie fans. Photos. (Sept.)

Guardian Review

If Agatha Christie remains elusive, it's not for the want of those trying to find her. Janet Morgan's official biography of 1984 and Laura Thompson's equally detailed but ultimately more impressionistic portrait of 2007 have both been updated and reissued; and there are numerous other analyses that try to understand how the woman who routinely described herself as a housewife became Britain's bestselling novelist of all time. Enter historian Lucy Worsley, whose declared intention is to rescue Christie, who died in 1976 at the age of 85, from the misperceptions that cling to her life and her works of fiction. In service of the former, she revisits the most notorious episode of Christie's life: her disappearance for 11 days in December 1926, prompting blanket media coverage, an extensive police search and, after she had resurfaced at a hydropathic hotel in Harrogate, widespread suspicion that her tale of memory loss was an elaborate publicity stunt. In terms of the novels, Worsley's focus is on debunking the assumption that Christie invented and epitomised what has become known as "cosy" crime fiction, pointing to the darker elements of her work, its modernity, and its increasing interest in psychological themes. Is she convincing? Up to a point. These ways of thinking about Christie are not entirely new or unfamiliar, and although Worsley has evidently done due diligence among her subject's correspondence and personal records, there are no major revelations. It's more, perhaps, that she brings a clear-eyed empathy that allows her to acknowledge Christie's limitations and prejudices without consigning her to the silos of mass-market populist and absentee mother. Sometimes, this is a stretch. Worsley is correct to argue that dismissing the books as formulaic - algebraic, indeed - is a way of diminishing Christie's power to graft an apparently impenetrable mystery on to an evocatively imagined and interestingly peopled setting, and to repeat the trick over and over again; such reductive ways of characterising the work of popular writers are still very much in evidence. Her gift for dialogue and for manipulating social stereotypes, as Worsley demonstrates, was formidable, keenly attuned to the proliferating class anxieties of the 20th century; numerous characters are, interestingly, transitional or dispossessed in some way, at odds with one view of her as a writer of the country-house elite. (This approach gets only so far when it comes to discussing her reliance on racist tropes, and particularly antisemitic slurs, on which Worsley maintains that we must accept her as a product of her class and time, but also that we must squarely face the reality of what she writes and not try to excuse it. The issue here is that, fundamentally, the circle cannot be squared and rests largely on whether one believes bigotry is, at some level, historically inescapable.) This doesn't quite amount to the claims made in one eyebrow-raising passage in the biography, in which Worsley appears to argue that Christie has common ground with the modernists whose defining moment came as her first novels were published: "What if the middlebrow and the modernist could actually be the same thing?" she writes. "A more inclusive definition of modernism might mean that you can also find it in works that don't necessarily bludgeon you in the face with the shock of the new in the manner of Ulysses." If you are going to rescue one writer from misunderstanding, it's as well not to visit the same ignominy on another. And as much as The Murder of Roger Ackroyd's ingenuity relies on the disruption of accepted narrative convention, I don't think it has a lot in common with Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room. A Very Elusive Woman does, however, paint an intriguing picture of Christie as an upper-middle-class Victorian and Edwardian child whose life, then and later, encompassed significant losses and reversals of fortune, emotionally and materially. Perhaps counterintuitively, Worsley's plummy-chummy tone bolsters rather than detracts from the seriousness with which she has evidently taken her task, as if she's attempting to translate the sensibilities of a bygone era and mindset to contemporary life. Of Christie's first husband, Archibald, whose adultery sparked that 1926 flight, she confides that a photograph of him impressed on her "an essential fact" that she hadn't hitherto appreciated: "He was incredibly hot." When Agatha is patronised by a chemist from whom she's trying to learn about poisons, Worsley simply says: "Urgh". Where Worsley excels is in her descriptions of Christie's day-to-day life; we hear virtually nothing of her political opinions as she lives through two world wars, for example, but we do glean a sense of her exceptionalism in the news that she consistently ignored air-raid sirens and simply turned over in bed. And she reports Christie's almost compulsive buying of properties, her quiet, near-clandestine funding of her second husband's archeological career and her love of rich food in a way that allows us to understand the version of home, love and stability she was trying to recreate. This may be the first biography I've read where my attention was genuinely piqued by the discussion of the subject's tax affairs. Has Lucy Worsley tracked down Agatha Christie? Not quite, but her nose for diverting byways may suffice.

Kirkus Review

The queen of suspense gets the royal treatment. British historian Worsley comes up with another winner in this sprightly, endearing biography. Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was elusive, Worsley argues, because she "deliberately played upon the fact that she seemed so ordinary." In 1914, she married Archibald Christie and wrote while raising her daughter. Her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, starred a Belgian refugee, the "egg-headed Hercule Poirot with his ridiculous moustache." Worsley also shows how Christie took care to create narratives that put "the lives of women centre stage" as well as how her personal experiences informed her work: "Everything Agatha experienced became copy." For example, she worked at a hospital pharmacy and learned about poisons, which she used to great effect in her books. A smart and savvy author, she wrote in various genres to learn which sold best. One of Christie's gifts, writes Worsley, was to "democratise the Gothic, making it appealing to the mass market." While building a devoted audience, she was also breaking new ground. The revolutionary Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Worsley writes, is "one of the greatest detective novels of all time." After 1926, when she disappeared for days following her discovery of her husband's infidelity, her novels "would firmly address dark, uncomfortable feelings." Vacationing in Iraq after her divorce, she met young archaeologist Max Mallowan and married him. Worsley argues convincingly that the 1930s were Christie's most productive years. During that time, she introduced new characters, including Miss Marple, and wrote plays. In 1946, she contributed a new play, Three Blind Mice (later reworked as The Mousetrap), for Queen Mary's 80th birthday. Despite her massive popularity, she remained an "unusually publicity-shy celebrity" even as her stories, which often became films, began to reach new audiences. Throughout, Worsley takes us behind the scenes to reveal classic "Christie tricks" from her books. With great affection, Worsley masterfully maneuvers her way through Christie's life and prolific oeuvre. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

Who was the real Agatha Christie? While hugely prolific and successful--she is considered to be one of the world's most-read authors--Christie would often describe herself as a housewife. British historian and BBC presenter Worsley (Jane Austen at Home), in this careful consideration of Christie's life, argues that few truly knew her. Born into a privileged family that later fell into straitened circumstances, Christie was a true product of her social class. However, Worsley argues, the expected trajectory of Christie's life was disrupted several times--by World War I; by a job in a pharmacy (which informed the novelist's encyclopedic knowledge of poisons); and by an impulsive marriage to war hero Archie Christie--culminating in Agatha's 10-day disappearance in 1926. In the ensuing media storm, speculation regarding her motives--much of it salacious--was rife. Worsley provides a welcome and objective addition to the Christie record; her conscientious examination of previous Christie studies, especially regarding the events of 1926, reveals much of the earlier reporting to have been inaccurate and unfair. Worsley argues that the real Christie is in the text. VERDICT Worsley's thoughtful and generous contribution to the Christie biographical canon will be welcomed and enjoyed by Agatha Christie fans.--Penelope J.M. Klein

Preface: Hiding in Plain Sight	p. xiii
Part 1 Victorian Girl - 1890s
1 The House Where I Was Born	p. 3
2 Insanity in the Family	p. 8
3 The Thing in the House	p. 13
4 Ruined	p. 20
Part 2 Edwardian Debutante - 1900s
5 Waiting for The Man	p. 29
6 Best Victorian Lavatory	p. 33
7 The Gezireh Palace Hotel	p. 36
8 Enter Archibald	p. 42
Part 3 Wartime Nurse - 1914-18
9 Torquay Town Hall	p. 51
10 Love and Death	p. 60
11 Enter Poirot	p. 67
12 The Moorland Hotel	p. 73
Part 4 Bright Young Author - 1920s
13 Enter London	p. 79
14 Enter Rosalind	p. 84
15 The British Mission	p. 88
16 Thrillers	p. 95
Part 5 1926
17 Sunningdale	p. 107
18 The Mysterious Affair at Styles	p. 114
19 Disappearance	p. 123
20 The Harrogate Hydropathic Hotel	p. 134
21 Reappearance	p. 156
Part 6 Plutocratic Period - 1930s
22 Mesopotamia	p. 173
23 Enter Max	p. 182
24 I Think I Will Marry You	p. 188
25 Eight Houses	p. 197
26 The Golden Age	p. 210
Part 7 Wartime Worker - 1940s
27 Beneath the Bombs	p. 221
28 A Daughter's a Daughter	p. 232
29 Life Is Rather Complicated	p. 243
30 By Mary Westmacott	p. 253
Part 8 Taken at the Flood - 1950s
31 A Big Expensive Dream	p. 263
32 They Came to Baghdad	p. 270
33 Christie-Land after the War	p. 280
34 Second Row in the Stalls	p. 289
35 A Charming Grandmother	p. 297
Part 9 Not Swinging - 1960s
36 The Mystery of the Christie Fortune	p. 305
37 A Queer Lot	p. 315
38 Lady Detectives	p. 324
39 To Know When to Go	p. 330
Part 10 Curtain - 1970s
40 Winterbrook	p. 337
41 After the Funeral	p. 348
Sources	p. 357
Acknowledgements	p. 365
Notes	p. 367
Index	p. 399
Picture Acknowledgements	p. 415

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