Agatha Christie

Author: Lucy Worsley

c 1800 to c 1900 | 20th century | Biography: arts & entertainment | Biography: literary | Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers

Published on 31^st August 2023 by Hodder & Stoughton (Hodder Paperback) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback / softback | 432 pages
127mm x 198mm x 30mm | 326g

A smart and highly entertaining portrait of a literary powerhouse- THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEARA riveting portrait- GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR***Worsleys sparkling biography brings a fresh eye to Christies life and work, firmly busting the myth that she, or her novels, were cosy. Daily MailEvery Christie fan should read this - The TimesShows the Queen of Crime in a new light. - Daily TelegraphWorsleys book excels in bringing a broader historical perspective to Christies life and work, and her enthusiasm is infectious. - ObserverNobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was just an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasnt? 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 which had its own rules about what women could and couldnt do. Lucy Worsleys biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling writer. Its 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 Worsleys biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was - truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.