Agatha Christie : an elusive woman Cover Image

Book

Agatha Christie : an elusive woman / Lucy Worsley.

Summary:

"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"--Dust jacket flap.

Record details

ISBN: 9781639362523
ISBN: 1639362525
Physical Description: xvi, 415 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, genealogical table ; 24 cm
Edition: First Pegasus Books cloth edition.
Publisher: New York : Pegasus Crime, 2022.
Copyright: ©2022

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 357-363, 367-397) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Preface: Hiding in plain sight -- Part one: Victorian girl, 1890s. The house where I was born ; Insanity in the family ; The thing in the house ; Ruined -- Part two: Edwardian debutante, 1900s. Waiting for the man ; Best Victorian lavatory ; The Gezireh Palace Hotel ; Enter Archibald -- Part three: Wartime nurse, 1914-18. Torquay Town Hall ; Love and death ; Enter Poirot ; The Moorland Hotel -- Part four: Bright young author, 1920s. Enter London ; Enter Rosalind ; The British Mission ; Thrillers -- Part five: 1926. Sunningdale ; The Mysterious Affair at Styles ; Disappearance ; The Harrogate Hydropathic Hotel ; Reappearance -- Part six: Plutocratic period, 1930s. Mesopotamia ; Enter Max ; I think I will marry you ; Eight houses ; The golden age -- Part seven: Wartime worker, 1940s. Beneath the bombs ; A daughter's a daughter ; Life is rather complicated ; By Mary Westmacott -- Part eight: Taken at the flood, 1950s. A big expensive dream ; They came to Baghdad ; Christie-land after the war ; Second row in the stalls ; A charming grandmother -- Part nine: Not swinging, 1960s. The mystery of the Christie fortune ; A queer lot ; Lady detectives ; To know when to go -- Part ten: Curtain, 1970s. Winterbrook ; After the funeral.