Is there a better time than right before Halloween to dive into the life of the Queen of Crime? Agatha Christie’s novels have been captivating readers for over a century now; The Mysterious Affair at Styles was first published in 1920/21. And we have all been fascinated with her life ever since. There are older biographies of Christie but they tend to take a rather negative view of her and her life, so I was thrilled when a new biography was published by none other than Lucy Worsley. For our last October Book Bite, we have Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley!
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman, 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.
Why You Should Read This…
Lucy Worsley has long been a popular historian- readers and audiences alike flock to her books and television programmes, and for good reason. She makes history accessible and enjoyable for everyone, and she brings her subjects to life without glorifying them. As always, this was a fascinating audiobook that I could not put down.
My only warning for this book is that it does have serious spoilers for several Christie novels; if this is an issue for you, you might want to wait to read it.
Worsley starts at the very beginning of Christie’s life and paints a picture of a complicated childhood that would indeed have lasting effects on her as a person. She then takes us through Christie’s life and career, and how they intertwined. I would say that anyone vaguely familiar with the author has some knowledge of her eleven-day disappearance in 1926. Worsley tackles the subject thoroughly and explores all sides of what was obviously a difficult time in Christie’s life- I appreciated that she gave space for Rosalyn (Christie’s daughter) and what she went through during that period. And most importantly, she did not allow the disappearance to take over the biography or to hold more importance than it should.
I personally loved that Worsley referenced Christie’s novel throughout, drawing connections during things that Agatha experienced and how they might have influenced her writing. Like I said above, if you are concerned about spoilers, it may be worth it waiting, but I think it ties the whole biography together!
Is Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman on your to-read list?
Cheers,
The Historian
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