15th September: Dame Agatha Christie

On this date in 1890 Dame Agatha Christie, murder-mystery author, was born. 10 things you might not know about Agatha Christie:

1. Agatha Christie is the best selling novelist of all time according to the Guinness Book of World Records and she is also the most widely translated one., her books having been translated into 103 languages. Unsurprisingly, the best selling mystery novel ever is one of hers - And then There Were None, which has sold 100 million copies. Yet even Agatha Christie had her share of rejections in the early days. Her first novel, Snow Upon the Desert, was rejected by several publishers and agents, as was her first Poirot novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, until eventually one accepted it on the proviso that she re-wrote the ending.
2. During World War I she worked as an assistant at a hospital in Torquay, and qualified as an Apothecaries' Assistant (or Dispenser) in 1917. Then in World War II she worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital, London. This was how she became knowledgeable about the various poisons which featured in her novels, such as Thallium, in The Pale Horse. Her description of thallium poisoning was so accurate that on one occasion doctors reading her novel realised that was what was wrong with a patient whose symptoms had baffled them.
3. She was married twice. Her first marriage, to Archie Christie, ended in divorce, because he had a mistress. In 1930 Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan, having met him in an archaeological dig. That marriage was a happy one and lasted until her death.
4. It seems likely that the breakdown of her first marriage is what prompted her famous disappearance in 1926. She vanished after a quarrel with Archie, leaving a note for her secretary saying she had gone to Yorkshire. Her car was found abandoned near a lake in Guildford, which prompted a search lasting 10 days, involving over a thousand police officers, 15,000 volunteers and several aeroplanes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle joined in the search by asking a psychic to find her using a glove belonging to Christie. Agatha Christie was eventually found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel) in Harrogate, Yorkshire, registered as Mrs Teresa Neele from Cape Town. No-one is really sure why she disappeared, and she throws no light on it in her autobiography, where she does not mention the incident at all. The official diagnosis at the time was amnesia - depression brought on by her husband's affair has also been suggested. The public at the time suspected a publicity stunt. There is even a theory that she intended to commit suicide and frame her husband for her murder. It seems unlikely that her choice of alias, Neele, the surname of her husband's mistress, was a coincidence.
5. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott. She also used the name Monosyllaba when submitting her first novel.
6. Towards the end of her career, Christie became thoroughly fed up with Hercule Poirot, describing him in her diary as "insufferable," and "an egocentric creep." She resisted any temptation to kill him off, though, because she knew the public liked him. She remained fond of Miss Marple, although she wrote twice as many novels featuring Poirot. The two characters never appeared together in any novel or story, because, in Christie's own words, "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady".
7. She and her second husband were both honoured separately by the Queen for their work. She was made a Dame in 1971 after he had been knighted in 1968 for his work in archaeology. Because of her husband's knighthood she was entitled to call herself Lady Mallowan.
8. Christie was very interested in archaeology too and accompanied Mallowan on many digs, in places such as Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Ninevah, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud, helping with restoration work and taking notes and photographs. In her spare time on the digs, she wrote novels and short stories. She also wrote an account of her time in Syria, Come Tell Me How You Live, describing the places and the eccentric people she met there.
9. She travelled widely with her first husband, too, to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, promoting the British Empire Exhibition. They left their daughter with her grandmother to take this trip. In Hawaii, they were among the first Britons to learn to surf standing up.
10. She and their siblings believed their mother was a psychic with second sight.