If life sometimes imitates artwork , one peachy instance is themysterious disappearanceof famous crime novelist Agatha Christie . In 1926 , the Englishwoman disappeared for 11 Day , goad a nationwide hunting . Feared dead , she was finally come upon alive , supposedly suffer from amnesia . But many had doubts about this explanation . Was this really a publicity stunt to spur book sale ? Revenge against her adulterous spouse ? No one will ever know for sure — perhaps because she intend it to be that direction .
Agatha Christie is view thebestselling novelist of all sentence , having indite 66 detective novel and 14 short story collections that together have trade more than 2 billion copy . That figure is only surpassed by sale of theBibleand the works ofShakespeare . She also wrote " The Mousetrap , " the earth ’s prospicient - running play , which first debuted in 1952 and is still going strong .
Agatha Christie’s Early Life
She was put up Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in 1890 in Torquay , England . Her father was American , her mother British . The youngest of three child , Agatha spend a happy childhood make up taradiddle , write , work pianoforte and telling . Unfortunately , her father conk out when she was 11 , and the family’sfinances became problematical . As one room to help oneself , her mother hope her youngest would marry up a societal class when she was older . Instead , she fall in love with Archibald Christie .
Archie , as he was known , was a dashing aviator in the Royal Flying Corps , and from a low societal form . before long after the two began dating , Archie was sent to France to fight down in World War I. When he came home a few months afterward in Dec. 1914 , the couple hastily married . Their only nestling , Rosalind , was yield in 1919 . During the warfare , Christie volunteer at the local Red Cross Hospital and exploit in the dispensary , where she learn a lot about poisonous substance , cognition that would make out in handy when she turned to writing detective novels .
During the early years of their man and wife , which seemed to be happy ones , Agatha put out her first book , " The Mysterious Affair at Styles " in 1920 . It was the first appearance of the shortly - to - be - lionize detective Hercule Poirot .
The Story Behind Agatha Christie’s Disappearance
In the spring of 1926 , Agatha ’s beloved female parent died , leave her devastated . To make affair bad , Archie ( who had originally distinguish her he did n’t wish to deal with illness or last ) promptlywent to Londoninstead of facilitate his wife to net out her mother ’s family in Torquay . Agatha became depressed , and in subsequent hebdomad look to be on the verge of a genial health crisis . Meanwhile , Archie began an affair with Nancy Neele , a family unit friend , approaching Agatha for a divorce that August ; Agatha refused to grant him one . The Christies seek to reconcile but on Dec. 3 , they had an tilt and Archie left home for the weekend . That ’s when everything conk out awry .
Sometime that evening , Agatha left a sleeping Rosalind in the caution of house staff , then drive off into the nighttime . The next morning , her abandoned car was discovered stick to in some bushes above a chalk quarry . The law at once begin to search for her , joined bythousands of average peopleafter a stir of promotion about the case . Rumors began to swirlthat she had drown herself , or that Archie had killed her . Another possibility : She was hiding so as to frame Archie for her murder .
Eleven days after her disappearing , Agatha was found alive at the Harrogate Spa Hotel , curiously register as Teresa Neele , antecedently of South Africa . Neele , of course of study , was the cognomen of Archie ’s mistress , while South Africa was a locale where Agatha and Archie had spent glad times . When Archie came to retrieve her , she did n’t know who he was .
So , what was the real reason for the disappearance ? In the one interview she gave on the subject , Agatha said she’dlost her computer storage — coincidentally , something that from time to time befall to characters in her novels . After psychotherapy , she was able to recreate a narrative of what had encounter . Christie said she had left home that night despondent and contemplating suicide . After aimlessly drive around the countryside , she accidentally crash her car near the chalk quarry , stimulate her head to take something .
After getting out of the motorcar , she made it to a geartrain station , where she traveled to Harrogate . She did not disguise herself in any way , nor enshroud her handwriting when she registered as Teresa Neele . She dine in the hotel eating place , took part in the evening dancing and did n’t appear to mark the newspaper article about her fade and the ensuing manhunt .
But many hoi polloi ( including late biographers ) did n’t think she was suffering from retentiveness loss , mull over that she intentionally engineered her fade . However , Lucy Worsley , a historiographer and writer of the new life history " Agatha Christie : An English Mystery , " avow that this was no scam , but a serious mental health episode .
In an interview release in the BBC’sHistoryExtra , Worsley said she believe Agatha entered a psychogenic fugue United States Department of State . " Now , this is a very rare condition , and it cause you to step right outside your normal self and espouse another persona , so that you do n’t have to think about the hurt you ’ve been experiencing in your current situation , " she said . " That ’s not border your cheating husband for murder — that is living with a really serious mental - wellness condition . And yet the narration is that she was somehow a regretful soul who was playing some sort of a magic on the world : perhaps she was doing it to frame the married man ; perhaps she was doing it to get care to sell novels . "
A New Start for Agatha
After Agatha ’s issue , the distich eventually divorced . In 1930 , she tie Max Mallowan , an archeologist 14 age her junior . Agatha join him on Middle Eastern digs every year , where she became cognize for her skillcleaning the findswith a clash and her face cream . She also bankroll his diggings . The two enjoyed many happy old age together .
Among her bestselling book are " The Murder of Roger Ackroyd , " " slaying on the Orient Express " and " And Then There Were None , " all of which sport original game twists that have since been copied endlessly by other novelists and screenwriter .
Agatha ’s final work — although not the last to be published — was " Postern of Fate , " penned in 1973 when she was in her 1980s . Sadly , the quality of her writing was declining , Worsley tell in the HistoryExtra interview . She andother expertsposited the reason may have been dementedness .
Perhaps in straight Christie fashion , one of the books she pen during this menses is titled " Elephants Can recall " and centers around a female novelist with retentivity release . Critics bang the al-Qur’an for light plotting and errors . But peradventure she was signaling her own cognitive demise in it .
Agatha Christie died in 1976 and is buried in England next to her hubby .
