An Autobiography

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  • Nonfiction-about
  • 1977

When Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976, she was known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime, unrivalled as the best-selling novelist of all time with two billion books sold in more than 100 languages. Though she kept her private life a mystery, for some years Agatha had secretly written her autobiography, and when it was published after her death, millions of her fans agreed - this was her best story!

From early childhood at the end of the 19th century, through two marriages and two World Wars, and her experiences both as a writer and on archaeological expeditions with her second husband, Max Mallowan, this book reveals the true genius of her legendary success with real passion and openness.

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There is nothing more wonderful to have in one's life, than time. I don't believe people get enough of it nowadays.

Agatha Christie, An Autobiography

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Begun in 1950 and eventually completed in 1965, Agatha Christie recounts her life from early childhood until the end of the memoir’s composition. The book came about from her reluctance to let others tell her story, as she explained to her agent Edmund Cork of Hughes Massie. Aware that the prospect was now inevitable, Agatha Christie took it upon herself to have the first word, although insisted that the book should not be published until after her death.

The best thing she has ever written.
Woman’s Own

After Agatha Christie passed away in 1976, the manuscript was edited by her long-standing publishers Collins and her only daughter, Rosalind Hicks and her husband Anthony. As a result the narrative ends in 1966, and does not include some of Christie’s later achievements such as her DBE in 1971 or the success of the 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express.

While there have been films inspired by specific events in Christie’s life, such as Agatha (1979) and the Doctor Who episode The Unicorn and the Wasp (2008), none of these are true adaptations of her autobiography.

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