Christie Agatha - Agatha Christie: a mysterious life

This book could not have written without the infinitely generous support of Mathew Prichard, Agathas grandson. He has given every possible assistance, and my gratitude is boundless. I also met Agathas daughter, Rosalind Hicks, on several occasions before she died. I talked to her and her husband, Anthony, at Greenway House; I shall always remember those meetings with great pleasure.

I met Sue Dawson and Sheila Alexander on my subsequent visits to Greenway, and they could not have been kinder or more helpful.

I was deeply appreciative of Janet Morgans willingness to talk to me. I had much enjoyed her biography when it was published, and frankly admit that it was a wonderful source book. I also loved our stimulating and thought-provoking chats. Henrietta McCall, the biographer of Max Mallowan, was extremely charming and generous towards me.

Further thanks go to Mr and Mrs Archibald Christie; John Mallowan; Dr Joan Oates; the Reverend and Mrs Christopher Turner; Baroness James; Professor Harry Smith; Rachel Maxwell-Hyslop; Dr Julian Reade; Diana Gunn; Julia Camoys Stonor; Anne Sykes; Diana Howland; Lady Saunders; Brian Stone; Charles Vance; John Curran; Tony Medawar; Margaret Moore; John Neate; the owners of Winterbrook House, who took the time to show me round their home and garden; Tessa Milne and her colleagues in the Books and Manuscripts department at Sothebys, who most kindly accommodated me while I read much of Agathas correspondence; Dr Jessica Gardner at Exeter University, always so friendly and helpful; the Bodleian Library, which tracked down the relevant Bradshaw Railway Guides; Meg Rich at Princeton University; Els Boonen at the BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham; Jonathan Harrison at St Johns College, Cambridge; Bridget Gillies at UEA; the Public Records Office at Kew; the Newspaper Library; the London Library; the Surrey History Centre; the Surrey Constabulary; Torquay Library; and the writer Margaret Yorke, who was a wonderful friend to this book.

Finally I thank Val Hudson and Jo Roberts-Miller at Headline; David Godwin; my friend Dena Arstall, with whom I had some terrific talks about Agatha; my mother, as always; and my late father, who loved Agatha Christie, and who would have enjoyed this book.

Where a book has been published in the United States under a different title, this is given in parenthesis

1920 The Mysterious Affair at Styles

1922 The Secret Adversary

1923 Murder on the Links

1924 The Man in the Brown Suit

1924 Poirot Investigates (collected short stories)

1924 The Road of Dreams (collected poems)

1925 The Secret of Chimneys

1926 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

1927 The Big Four

1928 The Mystery of the Blue Train

1929 The Seven Dials Mystery

1929 Partners in Crime (short stories)

1929 The Underdog

1930 The Mysterious Mr. Quin (collected short stories)

1930 The Murder at the Vicarage

1930 Black Coffee (play)

1930 The Secret of Chimneys (adapted play)

1930 Giants Bread (Mary Westmacott)

1931 The Sittaford Mystery (Murder at Hazelmoor)

1932 Peril at End House

1932 The Thirteen Problems (collected short stories) (The Tuesday Club Murders)

1933 Lord Edgware Dies (Thirteen at Dinner)

1933 The Sunningdale Mystery

1934 Murder on the Orient Express (Murder in the Calais Coach)

1934 The Listerdale Mystery (collected short stories)

1934 Why Didnt They Ask Evans? (The Boomerang Clue)

1934 Parker Pyne Investigates (short stories) (Mr. Parker Pyne Detective)

1934 Unfinished Portrait (Mary Westmacott)

1935 Three Act Tragedy (Murder in Three Acts)

1935 Death in the Clouds (Death in the Air)

1936 The ABC Murders

1936 The Hound of Death (collected short stories)

1936 Murder in Mesopotamia

1936 Cards on the Table

1936 Love from a Stranger (play)

1937 Murder in the Mews (Dead Mans Mirror)

1937 Dumb Witness (Poirot Loses a Client / Murder at Littlegreen House)

1937 Death on the Nile

1937 Akhnaton (play; published 1973)

1938 Appointment with Death

1938 Hercule Poirots Christmas (Murder for Christmas / A Holiday for Murder)

1939 Murder is Easy (Easy to Kill)

1939 And Then There Were None

1939 The Regatta Mystery (short stories)

1940 Sad Cypress

1940 One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (The Patriotic Murders)

1941 Evil Under the Sun

1941 N or M?

1942 The Body in the Library

1942 Five Little Pigs (Murder in Retrospect)

1943 The Moving Finger

1943 Ten Little Niggers (adapted play)

1944 Towards Zero

1944 Death Comes as the End

1944 Absent in the Spring (Mary Westmacott)

1945 Sparkling Cyanide (Remembered Death)

1945 Appointment with Death (adapted play)

1945 Hidden Horizon (play adapted from Death on the Nile)

1946 The Hollow (Murder After Hours)

1946 Come, Tell Me How you Live (memoir by Agatha Christie Mallowan)

1947 The Labours of Hercules (short stories)

1948 Taken at the Flood (There is a Tide)

1948 The Rose and the Yew Tree (Mary Westmacott)

1948 Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

1949 Crooked House

1950 A Murder is Announced

1950 Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

1951 They Came to Baghdad

1951 The Hollow (adapted play)

1952 Mrs. McGinty's Dead

1952 They Do It with Mirrors (Murder with Mirrors)

1952 The Mousetrap (play)

1952 A Daughters a Daughter (Mary Westmacott)

1953 After the Funeral (Funerals are Fatal)

1953 A Pocket Full of Rye

1953 Witness for the Prosecution (play)

1954 Destination Unknown (So Many Steps to Death)

1954 Spiders Web (play)

1955 Hickory Dickory Dock (Hickory Dicker y Death)

1956 Dead Mans Folly

1957 The Burden (Mary Westmacott)

1957 4.50 from Paddington (What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!)

1958 Ordeal by Innocence

1958 Verdict (play)

1958 The Unexpected Guest (play)

1959 Cat Among the Pigeons

1959 Go Back for Murder (play adapted from Five Little Pigs)

1960 The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (short stories)

1961 The Pale Horse

1962 The Mirror Crackd from Side to Side (The Mirror Crackd)

1962 Rule of Three (plays)

1963 The Clocks

1964 A Caribbean Mystery

1965 At Bertrams Hotel

1965 Star Over Bethlehem (short stories and poems)

1966 Third Girl

1967 Endless Night

1968 By the Pricking of My Thumbs

1969 Halloween Party

1970 Passenger to Frankfurt

1971 Nemesis

1971 Fiddlers Five (play; 1972 renamed Fiddlers Three)

1972 Elephants Can Remember

1973 Postern of Fate

1973 Poems

1974 Poirots Early Cases (Hercule Poirots Early Cases)

1975 Curtain: Poirots Last Case

1976 Sleeping Murder

1977 An Autobiography