The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie: A Biographical Companion to the Works of Agatha Christie

by Charles Osborne

Book Overview

Agatha Christie wrote over 100 plays, short story collections, and novels, which have been translated into 103 languages, and she has been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.No one has succeeded in copying her, though many have tried, and she remains the best selling modern writer throughout the world. For all her success and renown, however, Agatha Christie was a very private person. Over the years, many have attempted to capture her personality,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312281307
• ISBN13: 9780312281304
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 421 Pages
• Weight: 1.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.6" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Plodding but undeniably useful

This book is pretty well summed up in its subtitle: "A Biographical Companion to the Works of Agatha Christie." It is also one of those useful and occasionally indispensable volumes compiled by a natural-born plodder. Osborne is the chosen scribbler given the task of producing novelized versions of some of Christie's plays. He clearly is held in high favor by the Christie Trust. As a biographer, it very quickly becomes clear that he is concerned with presenting the Establishment picture of Dame Agatha May Clarissa Miller Christie Mallowan. There will be no surprises and no probing beneath the respectable (save for nearly two weeks in December 1926) life of the public figure. The one lurid episode in the lady's life, her mysterious disappearance, is wrapped up on pages 51 to 57 of the hardbound edition with no more factual material than that contained in Christie's famously uncommunicative autobiography. Of speculation, there is even less. So little, in fact that the existence of "Agatha," a popular mystery novel by Kathleen Tynan that offers amusing conjectures about Christie's actions and motives, is willfully ignored. This is even more true of the movie based upon the book that featured Vanessa Redgrave as Agatha and Timothy Dalton as Archie. The index of Osborne's book does, indeed, have an entry for Ms. Redgrave, but it refers to a small part she had in the movie of "Murder on the Orient Express," not to her portrayal of Agatha Christie herself. This ultra orthodox approach to biography does no particular harm. The essentials of Christie's public life are laid out well enough. In all probability, the inner Christie was as respectable as the outer one--but we don't know and with biographers like Charles Osborne, we never shall. Osborne's treatment of the "Works of Agatha Christie" is that of a mystery fan, not a critic. He provides a sketch of how a work came to be written, identifies the main characters, establishes the premise of novel, story or play, but he never outlines the complete plot and he never, never identifies a culprit. There are, of course, some critical trappings. Poirot's French, we are informed, is sometimes less than idiomatic. Christie occasionally gave voice to the casual and unthinking anti-Semitism of the class and time into which she had been born. (That deplorable fault faded away with time, particularly after a pre-World War II encounter with a Nazi official stationed in the Middle East. He was perfectly charming to her and her second husband until he shocked her by going all Dalek while talking about the Jews then in Germany: "Exterminate them!") Christie had a thrifty, want-not-waste-not bent for recycling useful plots and details of action, such as three or four occasions in which one character looking over another's shoulder suddenly observes something that will lead to grim results. As Agatha became elderly, her books became less tightly plotted and her dialogue more diffuse. All this is w

Best Written Biography On Agatha Christie's Life & Crimes

Charles Osborne's book offers a fast-paced chronicle of Dame Christie's life and unbiased critique of her works. The book highlighted many interesting tidbits of Christie's private life (engrossing account of Ms. Christie's famous disappearance in 1926; her work as an archaeologist's assistant; her love for dogs; idiosyncrasies like forever munching on apples while she wrote) to her characters (from her intolerance over sleuth Poirot to her favorite character, Caroline Sheppard, not least her alter-ego, Adraidne Oliver). While in general affectionately and reverently written, Osbourne remained impartial and did not skim over Agatha Christie's limitations as a writer of sorts: (1) As a Poet - "...talent for poetry was genuine, but modest and of no startling originality..." (2) Grasp of French language - "...despite her Paris finishing school, Ms. Christie's French was to remain obstinately unidiomatic..." in reference to Poirot's characterization. (3) Heavy-handedness - "...construction of English sentences a trifle more exotic than needs be". (4) Subjectivity - "...you won't turn people into angels by appealing to their better nature yet awhile - but by judicious force...." (5) Occasional propensity to not play fair by non-disclosure - "I have a certain amount of rules. No false words must be uttered by me....but it's not unfair to leave things out". (6) Carelessness - "Mrs. Christie's carelessness again? Or simply a misprint in certain editions? Or has Poirot moved without telling even his creator?" and "She tells us that Ackroyd is nearly 50 years of age,...later it becomes clear that he could not have been older than 43" and "now in the 80s, Dame Agatha is more careless than ever. Improbabilities are not explained, certain things do not quite add up....". (7) Recycling of plots - "Variations of one of the plot of one of the stories....will be presented in...Murder in the Mews and in the novel, Evil Under the Sun....the plot of another story...will be made use of again in the novel...an element in the plot of ....will re-occur in ....". (8) Limited literary range - "....examine various aspects of human behavior that is impressive, rather than the actual quality of her writing, though her prose is never less than adequate to convey mood and meaning..." and "...Death by Drowning which is also one of the few occasions when Agatha Christie strayed into working class territory". (9) Monotony & Repetition - "...for they are (Miss Marple's tales) all very sedentary stories whose action is recounted in retrospect..." and "...the reader is plunged again into Christiean nursery rhyme syndrome: a series of murders committed concurrently with the progress of the images in a nursery rhyme". (10) Anti-Semitism - "The mandatory racial slurs...have been edited out of more recent American editions....". I disagree with reviewers who criticized Osbourne's book for being biased for he has ostensibly studied and researched the subject matter to t

complete overview of Agatha Christie's works

I've had this book for a few months now and am continuously referring back to it. This is a perfect book to have on hand while reading her collection of books. Charles Osbourne presents an overview of Agatha Christie's life and works his way chronologically through each book she wrote with new insights into the storylines and other happening in her life at the time of her writing the book. Mr. Osbourne does not reveal too much, so it is safe to read his accounts before reading her books.This is a perfect companion book to her works.

A must read for Christie Fans

THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF AGATHA CHRISTIE is a delightful look at the great author through her vast novels, plays, and short stories. The well-written reference book is structured around major events in Ms. Christie's life, but seen through the works that are published at that time. Charles Osborne keeps the tome fresh with intriguing explanations on various topics such as titles. For instance the "final" title of THEN THERE WERE NONE reflects social trends and political correctness over the decades in England and America, and to a lesser degree France. Fans of Ms. Christie will find this work quite fascinating, but so will most mystery buffs as well as historiographers.Harriet Klausner

A good biography and companion book

I enjoyed this book. It had some third person insights that her autobiography could not contain. It also had many quotes from her husbands autobiography than rounded out her life's story nicely. It is somewhat repetitive for those of us who have already read all of her books and her life story, but Charles Osbourn did manage to give me some further insights into her work. This work includes not only her life story, but also a lot of information about her books. It does NOT include how any of her books end, lest it ruin any of her books for any of the readers who have not read all of her works. This would be a fine addition to any Agatha Christie library.