Agatha Christie Power And Illusion

This study shows how she sought to reconcile her attachment to the Victorian past with her recognition of a new society that undermined established order and in doing so gave more opportunities to women, confused class-boundaries, extended tolerance, allowed the cult of pleasure and self-assertion and revealed the ambiguities of respectability.

When Agatha Christie died in 1976, she was the bestselling mystery writer in history. This collection of new essays brings fresh perspectives to Christie scholarship with new readings and discussions of little-known aspects of her life, career and legacy. The contributors explore her relationship with modernism, the relevance of queer theory, television adaptations, issues with translations, information behavior theory, feminist readings, postcolonial tribute novels, celebrity culture and heritage cinema. The final word is given to fans in an editorial that collates testimonies from readers, collectors and enthusiasts.

Explores seven startling paradoxes behind the bestselling novelist's lasting popularity Agatha Christie stands as the bestselling novelist of all time and, in terms of total sales in all genres, places only behind the Christian Bible and Shakespeare. Since the publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920, Christie's fiction has withstood the envy of her peers and the snipes of critics, while garnering the admiration of countless readers. From her puzzling persona (notably in her eleven-day disappearance in 1926) and status as "Queen of the Cozies" to her tragicomic themes and critiques of Englishness, Christie built a lasting literary legacy that perplexes and pleases her hordes of readers. In Understanding Agatha Christie, Tison Pugh takes a fresh look at the contemporary world's most popular author, investigating seven notable paradoxes behind her lasting success, thereby illuminating the literary innovations that have contributed to her uncannily timeless appeal.

This book is the first fully theorized queer reading of a Golden Age British crime writer. Agatha Christie was the most commercially successful novelist of the twentieth century, and her fiction remains popular. She created such memorable characters as Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, and has become synonymous with a nostalgic, conservative tradition of crime fiction. J.C. Bernthal reads Christie through the lens of queer theory, uncovering a playful, alert, and subversive social commentary. After considering Christie’s emergence in a commercial market hostile to her sex, in Queering Agatha Christie Bernthal explores homophobic stereotypes, gender performativity, queer children, and masquerade in key texts published between 1920 and 1952. Christie engaged with debates around human identity in a unique historical period affected by two world wars. The final chapter considers twenty-first century Poirot and Marple adaptations, with visible LGBT characters, and poses the question: might the books be queerer?

This book is a comprehensive exploration of 90 years of film and television adaptations of the world’s best-selling novelist’s work. Drawing on extensive archival material, it offers new information regarding both the well-known and forgotten screen adaptations of Agatha Christie’s stories, including unmade and rare adaptations, some of which have been unseen for more than half a century. This history offers intriguing insights into the discussions and debates that surrounded many of these screen projects – something that is brought to life through previously unpublished correspondence from Christie herself and a new wide-ranging interview with her grandson, Mathew Prichard. Agatha Christie on Screen takes the reader on a journey from little known silent film adaptations, through to famous screen productions including 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express, as well as the television series of the Poirot and Miss Marple stories and, most recently, the BBC’s acclaimed version of And Then There Were None.

Nominated for the 2023 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Critical / Biography The first specifically academic companion to contemporary scholarship on the work of Agatha Christie, this book includes chapters by an international group of scholars writing on topics and fields of study as various as ecocriticism and the anthropocene, popular modernism, middlebrow fiction, queer theory, feminism, crime and the state, and more. It addresses a broad selection of Christie's crime novels, as well as her short stories, literary novels written pseudonymously, and her own and others' dramatic adaptations for television, film, and the stage. Featuring unprecedented access to images and content held in Christie's personal archive, as well as a Foreword from renowned crime fiction writer Val McDermid, this is essential reading for anyone interested in Christie's work and legacy.

Agatha Christie has never been substantially considered as a war writer, even though war is a constant presence in her writing. This interdisciplinary collection of essays considers the effects of these conflicts on the social and psychological textures of Christie’s detective fiction and other writings, demonstrating not only Christie’s textual navigation of her contemporary surroundings and politics, but also the value of her voice as a popular fiction writer reflecting popular concerns. Agatha Christie Goes to War introduces the ‘Queen of Crime’ as an essential voice in the discussion of war, warfare, and twentieth century literature.

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