Background on Agatha Christie for The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Agatha Christie was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller on September 15, 1890 in
Devon, England. Her father was American and her mother was British. She grew up in
an upper middle-class family in a seaside resort town. She was educated at home by her
parents.
Christie’s literary career began during her recovery from a long illness. At her
mother’s suggestion, she wrote a story and found that she liked writing. Her successful
detective stories began with a challenge from Agatha’s sister who believed that detective
stories would be too difficult for Agatha to write.
Agatha married Archibald Christie in 1914 but divorced him in 1928 after
Archibald left her for another woman, leaving her with their only child, Rosalind.
Christie responded to her husband’s abandonment by disappearing in December of 1926.
The subject of a nationwide, media frenzy manhunt, Christie was discovered ten days
later at a resort hotel using the name of her husband’s mistress. She claimed to have no
memory of what happened, an amnesia she says was brought on by stress. That was all
she ever had to say about the ordeal and never mentioned it in her autobiography
published in 1977. It is still unclear whether Christie faked this to get revenge on her
husband and publicity for her fiction or whether her story of amnesia is true.
During World War I, Agatha Christie learned about nursing at the Red Cross
Hospital, where she worked as a dispenser. She used the knowledge she gained about
poisons in many of her books. It was during this volunteer work that Christie met
numerous refugees, including a number of Belgians.
In 1930, Agatha Christie married Max Mallowan, a noted archaeologist. She
accompanied him on trips to Iraq and Syria. This marriage lasted until her death in
January of 1976.
Agatha Christie is one of the four best selling authors in the history of the world.
She wrote eight-eight books, sixty-eight of them novels. By the seventies, more than 400
million copies of Christie books, printed in 103 languages, had been sold. Dame Agatha
Christie is the most distinguished female mystery writer of her time and is the only
person ever made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1971).
The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in 1920, was her first mystery novel. It
did not meet with immediate success. Some of Christie’s most famous works include
And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Murder of Roger
Ackroyd. Her famous detectives, the memorable Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot and the
loveable Miss Jane Marple, are household names in detective fiction. According to Janet
Teacher, characteristics of Christie’s fiction include the creation and maintenance of
suspense, a carefully planned buildup to the climax, and the revelation of an unlikely
perpetrator of the crime.
Reading Schedule for The Mysterious Affair at Styles
By Monday, November 24, you should have chapters one and two completed.
By Tuesday, November 25, you should have chapter three completed.
By Monday, December 1, you should have chapter four completed. Expect a quiz over
one-four.
By Tuesday, December 2, you should have chapter five completed.
By Wednesday, December 3, you should have chapter six completed.
By Thursday, December 4, you should have chapter seven completed.
By Monday, December 8, you should have chapters eight and nine completed. Expect a
quiz over five-nine.
By Tuesday, December 9, you should have chapter ten completed.
By Wednesday, December 10, you should have chapter eleven completed.
By Thursday, December 11, you should have chapter twelve completed.
By Friday, December 12, you should have chapter thirteen completed. Expect a quiz
over ten-thirteen.
Monday, December 15 you will have your major test over Agatha Christie, detective
fiction, and this novel.