Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (15 September 1890-12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
She wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery TheMousetrap, which has been performed in the West End since 1952.
A writer during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Christie has been called the Queen of Crime. She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.
In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
In her youth, Christie showed little interest in antiquities. After her marriage to Mallowan in 1930, she accompanied him on annual expeditions, spending three to four months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Nineveh, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud. Mallowans also took side trips whilst travelling to and from expedition sites, visiting Italy, Greece, Egypt, Iran, and the Soviet Union, among other places. Their experiences travelling and living abroad are reflected in novels such as Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and Appointment with Death.
Death on the Nile is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 1 November 1937 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence and the US edition at $2.00.
The book features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The action takes place in Egypt, mostly on the River Nile. The novel is unrelated to Christie's earlier short story of the same name, which featured Parker Pyne as the detective.
Contemporary reviews of the book were primarily positive. The Times Literary Supplement's short review concluded by saying Hercule Poirot, as usual, digs out a truth so unforeseen that it would be unfair for a reviewer to hint at it.
The Scotsman review of 11 November 1937 finished by saying that, the author has again constructed the neatest of plots, wrapped it round with distracting circumstances, and presented it to what should be an appreciative public.
E R Punshon of The Guardian in his review of 10 December 1937 began by saying, To decide whether a writer of fiction possesses the true novelist's gift it is often a good plan to consider whether the minor characters in his or her book, those to whose creation the author has probably given little thought, stand out in the narrative in their own right as living personalities. This test is one Mrs Christie always passes successfully, and never more so than in her new book.
In a later review, Robert Barnard wrote that this novel is One of the top ten, in spite of an overcomplex solution. The familiar marital triangle, set on a Nile steamer. The weakness is that there is Comparatively little local colour, but some good grotesques among the passengers – of which the film took advantage. He notes a change in Christie's novels with this plot published in 1937, as Spies and agitators are beginning to invade the pure Christie detective story at this period, as the slide towards war begins.
The Stonesare spending their last days in Manchester. The Grandma has bought some new properties and they are deciding what to do with them. They have had enough time to review some English Grammar. They have studied Present Simple vs. PresentContinuous, Object Pronouns and The Comparative.
All the properties have emotional meaning for The Grandma and although it is impossible to choose only one, she wants to talk about a beautiful cottage acquired in St Mary Mead where lives one of the most famous grannies of the world, Miss Marple.
St Mary Mead is a fictional village created by popular crime fiction author Dame Agatha Christie.
The quaint, sleepy village was home to the renowned detective spinster Miss Marple. However, Agatha Christie first described a village of that name prior to Marple's introduction, in the 1928 Hercule Poirot novel The Mystery of the Blue Train. In that novel, St Mary Mead is home to the book's protagonist Katherine Grey. The village was first mentioned in a Miss Marple book in 1930, when it was the setting for the first Marple novel, The Murder at the Vicarage.
Miss Marple's St Mary Mead is described in The Murder at the Vicarage as being in the fictional county of Downshire, but in the later novel The Body in theLibrary Downshire has become Radfordshire.
In the BBC Miss Marple TV adaptation of Nemesis, a letter from Mr Rafiel's solicitors indicate that St Mary Mead is located in the also fictional county of Middleshire. The St Mary Mead of Katherine Grey is in Kent.
Miss Marple lives in Danemead Cottage, the last cottage in Old PastureLane. Her telephone number is three five on a manual exchange.
Once it has been fully established as Miss Marple's home village, St Mary Mead is supposed to be in South East England, 40 km from London. It is just outside the town of Much Benham and is close to Market Basing, which appears as a name of a town in many of Agatha Christie's novels and short stories, 19 km from the fashionable seaside resort of Danemouth, and also 19 km from the coastal town of Loomouth.
Other towns said to be close by include Brackhampton, Medenham Wells, and Milchester. The neighbourhood of St Mary Mead is served by trains arriving at Paddington railway station, indicating a location west or south west of London.
It has been suggested that Market Basing is Basingstoke and Danemouth is Bournemouth. In the BBC Miss Marple television adaptations the Hampshire village of Nether Wallop was used as the setting for St Mary Mead. Brackhampton could be Bracknell, just north of Basingstoke.
Before World War II, the village itself was not particularly large. The only road of significance passing through the village was High Street. Here were the well-established purveyances of Mr Petherick, the solicitors; Mrs Jamieson, the hairdressers; Mr Thomas's basket-weavers; The Blue Boar Pub; Mr Footit's butchers, Mr Jim Armstrong's dairies, Mr Berks's bakers and Mr Baker's grocery shop.
The little-trafficked railway station, featured in the book The Murder at the Vicarage, is also located at the very end of High Street; though the station may have closed by the time of the novel 4.50 from Paddington as Mrs McGillicuddy has a taxi arranged for the 14 km from Milchester station to MissMarple's house. Then, slightly further up Lansham Road, was the fine Victorian structure of Gossington Hall. Until the 1950s, this was home to the pompous retired military man, Colonel Arthur Bantry and his wife Mrs Dolly Bantry, Miss Marple's best friends in the village.
However, after Colonel Bantry died, Mrs Bantry sold the estate, but continued to live on in the grounds in the East Lodge. The Hall was later after one or two changes of ownership purchased by the film star Marina Gregg. One mile down Lansham Road was a very modern cottage called Chatsworth. It was also known as the Period Piece and Mr Booker's new house. It was bought in the early 1930s by Basil Blake, a member of the art department at Lemville film studios. It was also inhabited by Basil's wife, Dinah Lee an actress.
At the other end of Lansham Road, a small lane called Old Pasture Lane broke away from the main street. Nestled in this lane were three Queen Anne or Georgian houses, which belonged to three spinsters. The first house belonged to the long-nosed, gush and excitable Miss Caroline Wetherby. The second was Miss Amanda Hartnell, a proud, decent woman with a deep voice. The last cottage was called Danemead Cottage and it belonged to Miss Jane Marple, the famousspinster who solved countless cases between 1930 and 1976. The Post Office, and the dressmakers belonging to Mrs Politt, are located in front of the lane.
The centre of the village was the Vicarage, the very grand Victorian structure at the end of the Lane. The Vicarage was home to The Vicar Leonard Clement and his pretty young wife, Griselda with their nephew: Dennis, and later their two sons, Leonard and David.
Near the gardens of the Vicarage was a back lane which led to a small cottage called Little Gates. Until 1930, it was inhabited by an Anglo-Indian colonel who moved away and briefly rented it out to Mrs Lestrange.
Beyond the Vicarage were two more houses. The first was the residence of the village GP, Doctor Gerard Haydock. He continued to live on in the village beyond 1960. The other cottage was much larger than Dr Haydock's. It belonged to Mrs Martha Price-Ridley, a rich and dictatorial widow, and the most vicious gossip of all the old ladies in the village.
There was also a large estate, Old Hall, belonging to the despised local magistrate, Colonel Lucius Protheroe. He was murdered in 1930 in Mr Clement's study in the Vicarage. After his death, the mansion was turned into a block of flats, to the great disapproval of the villagers.
The flats housed Mrs Carmichael, a rich and eccentric old lady who was bullied by her maid, the Larkins, two sisters by the name of Skinner, one of whom was a supposed hypochondriac, and a young married couple, and a robbery was later committed by the Skinner sisters.
Finally, just beyond the home of the dreaded Price-Ridley, as she is known by other villagers, was a small stream, leading to the fields of Farmer Giles.
However, the Second World War took its toll on the village, and soon after the war Farmer Giles's fields were bought and tarmacked over; and a new housing estate was built upon it. This was referred to as The Development by the villagers who survived the war.
A very large hospital was also built near, manned by many doctors and nurses. As well as this there were some very large hotels and three film studios: Lemville, Elstree and Hellingforth.
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