A Daughter's A Daughter by Agatha Christie

The love between a mother and daughter turns to jealousy and bitterness in Christie's fifth novel published under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Cauldfield and hopes for new happiness. Her only child, Sarah, cannot contemplate the idea of her mother marrying again and wrecks any chance of her remarriage. Resentment and jealousy corrode their relationship as each seeks relief in different directions. Are mother and daughter destined to be enemies for life or will their underlying love for each other finally win through?

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.
Agatha Christie

More about this story

A Daughter's a Daughter was originally a play written throughout the 1930s, but was finally published as a novel in 1952 by Heinemann. Agatha Christie tried to interest Peter Saunders, later the producer of The Mousetrap, in the play in the 1950s. With some amendments (largely to adjust twenty-year-old references) the play finally opened on 9^th July 1956, at the Theatre Royal, Bath. It ran for one week of eight performances. It was billed under the name Westmacott, but by now the public had clued in on the author’s true identity so attendance was high.

It wasn’t until 2009 that the play finally made it to London’s West End. Starring Jenny Seagrove and Honeysuckle Weeks, it was produced by Bill Kenwright, who described the play as “brutal and incredibly honest”.