Agatha Christie dining with Queen Elizabeth II and other Christie memories.
Tuppence
City of London, United Kingdom
In An Autobiography Agatha Christie marks buying a car and dining with Queen Elizabeth II as two of the most exciting things that happened to her in life. She described the experience of dining with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace as having a fairy-tale quality to it as she thought that it was something that she would never have the pleasure of experiencing, describing the Queen as ‘so small, and slender, in her simple dark red velvet gown with one beautiful jewel', and remembering, 'her kindness and easiness in talking.’
Have you read An Autobiography?
Which of Agatha Christie's memories have you read or heard about that have stuck with you the most?
Have you read An Autobiography?
Which of Agatha Christie's memories have you read or heard about that have stuck with you the most?
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Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright. She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and six romances under the name Mary Westmacott. In 1971 she was elevated to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.
Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. She served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches, before marrying and starting a family in London. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six rejections, but this changed when The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot, was published in 1920.During the Second World War she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, during the Blitzand acquired a good knowledge of poisons which featured in many of her novels.
Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeare'sworks and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling booksof all time. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the world record for longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatrein the West End on 25 November 1952 and as of 2017 is still running after more than 25,000 performances.
In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. Later the same year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. In 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers' Association. On 15 September 2015, coinciding with her 125th birthday, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, and more than thirty feature films have been based on her work.
‘But I haven’t got any bathing-dress–’ ‘Haven’t you got anything that would–well–do?’ asked Max delicately. I considered, and in the end, dressed in a pink silk vest and a double pair of knickers. I was ready. The driver, the soul of politeness and delicacy, as indeed all Arabs are, moved away. Max, in shorts and a vest, joined me, and we swam in the blue water. It was heaven–the world seemed perfect–or at least it did until we went to start the car again. It had sunk gently into the sand and refused to move, and I now realised some of the hazards of desert driving.
Max and the driver, pulling out steel mats, spades, and various other things from the car, endeavoured to free us, but with no success. Hour succeeded hour. It was still ragingly hot. I lay down in the shelter of the car, or what shelter there was on one side of it, and went to sleep.
Max told me afterwards, whether truthfully or not, that it was at that moment he decided that I would make an excellent wife for him. ‘No fuss!’ he said. ‘You didn’t complain or say that it was my fault, or that we never should have stopped there. You seemed not to care whether we went on or not. Really it was at that moment I began to think you were wonderful.’ Ever since he said that to me I have tried to live up to the reputation I had made for myself. I am fairly good at taking things as they come, and not getting in a state.