Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery is a brilliant exploration of the life of the queen of crime
By Nadia Atia, Head of English & Reader in Postcolonial and Global Literature, Queen Mary University of London ·
This article was originally published by The Conversation. Author: Nadia Atia, Head of English & Reader in Postcolonial and Global Literature, Queen Mary University of London.
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s death, the exhibition A World of Mystery at the British Library takes visitors on a fascinating journey through spaces that evoke Christie’s life and work. This landmark exhibition offers unprecedented access to a body of private papers, diaries, manuscripts and family objects, brought together for public view for the first time.
Beautifully curated by Lucy Rowland, there is an impressive array of artefacts celebrating Christie’s life and work. Visitors can see objects that conjure important moments in Christie’s life from her Devon childhood to her travels around the globe, and her enormously successful career as novelist and playwright.
The exhibition begins in the English country house, a staple of Christie’s murder mysteries. Those less familiar with Christie’s biography will learn an enormous amount. But even die-hard fans will enjoy seeing hitherto closely guarded objects and manuscripts. There are rooms filled with childhood photographs, early stories written to impress her sister and hand-drawn sketches of St Mary Mead, Christie’s iconic English village and the setting for Miss Marple’s sleuthing. These sit alongside games that visitors can play and mysteries to be solved. For instance, what are your chances of being murdered in a Christie novel? Or, can you determine the motive behind the murder described?
In the exhibition’s second space, the dispensary, visitors learn not only about Christie’s war service and her training as a pharmaceutical dispenser, but how this specialist knowledge translated into murderous poisons used in her novels. Christie’s descriptions of poison were so detailed and accurate that they occasionally helped her readers to save lives.
Visitors are then transported to one of the most iconic of Christie’s spaces: the Orient Express. I have a longstanding interest in British travellers to Iraq in the early 20th century, which brought me to investigate Christie’s time in the country. I found the resonance of Christie’s travels to the Arab world beautifully evoked both in the Orient Express section and in the room that follows, dedicated to the archaeological dig.
Christie in the Middle East
As the exhibition describes, as a young woman, Christie was first taken to Cairo for her “coming out” – an opportunity for upper-class young women to be formally introduced into society. As Christie describes in her autobiography, “if you were well off, your mother gave a dance for you. You were supposed to go for a season in London”, but “there could be nothing like that in [Christie’s] life”. The Egyptian capital’s season was an affordable alternative to a traditional, expensive London coming out. Once there, she was not much interested in the city’s historical significance as a young girl, recalling: “The wonders of antiquity were the last thing I cared to see, and I am very glad [my mother] did not take me.”
She would return to the region in 1928 on a whim, changing her original plans to travel to the Caribbean at the last minute after a chance conversation inspired her to travel to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on the Orient Express instead. It was on that trip that she became friendly with the eminent archaeologist, Leonard Woolley, and his wife, Katharine, a fan of Christie’s writing.
Christie returned to Iraq to visit the couple at Ur (an ancient Sumerian city-state in southern Iraq) two years later. On that trip, she got to know Woolley’s assistant, Max Mallowan. As Mallowan describes in his memoir, Katharine urged the pair to take a trip together. As they took an impromptu swim in a saltwater lake, their car became stuck in the sand.
Mallowan describes how Christie’s stoic response to this minor disaster confirmed to him that “she must be a remarkable woman”. He proposed only a few months later, and the couple were married at St. Columba’s Church in Edinburgh in September 1930.
Throughout their married life, Christie accompanied Mallowan on almost all his excavations. The couple had a house in Baghdad and made temporary homes around the region. The exhibition highlights Christie’s often overlooked role on Mallowan’s digs.
She was a skilled photographer, supervised workmen on site, and cared for their finds, even using her moisturiser to clean ancient artefacts. It is surprisingly moving to see the small typewriter – cutting-edge technology in its day – which enabled Christie to live nomadically and write anywhere. She used it to draft some of her most famous novels.
Christie’s international reputation
The exhibition’s focus on space and place is mirrored in its investment in Christie as an author of global renown and influence. It underlines the ways in which Christie’s work – so often dismissed as lightweight, middlebrow, popular fiction – continues to circulate around the world in translation and adaption.
The more problematic aspects of Christie’s writing are also present. Attention is drawn to Christie’s antisemitism and her casual racism. The offensive original name of one of Christie’s most popular novels, And Then There Were None (1939) is never mentioned, but nevertheless it’s clear that the novel evolved and its title was changed in light of changing societal attitudes.
Before entering the exhibition proper, visitors pass a wall of Christie’s novels in translation. As we enjoy unauthorised Bollywood productions of And Then There Were None, posters advertising Shanghai productions of her play The Mousetrap, or interviews with Arab crime writers who reflect on Christie’s global literary legacy, there are continual reminders of the ways in which her writing has always appealed to worldwide audiences, despite the limitations that the exhibition highlights and critiques.
The final and most modern room is the theatre. Here, the visitor is transported to the West End. A large screen plays a black and white video of Christie, incredibly humble, celebrating the tenth anniversary of The Mouse Trap at the Savoy Hotel in London in 1962.
It’s difficult to overstate Christie’s modern legacy. Her work has been loved and emulated by millions. Electronic screens in the final rooms showcase that she has now sold over two billion novels; that she was the first woman to have two West End shows running at the same time; that there have been over 7,236 translations of her work.
Even 50 years after her death, she has sold 42,779 books worldwide just this week. Impressive, informative, but most of all great fun, Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery is a must see for anyone who has enjoyed Christie’s work.
Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery is at the British Library, London until June 20 2027
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
Nadia Atia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Originally published by The Conversation — UK film and music