Agatha Christie: An Autobiography
LC Class PR6005.H66 Z512 1977b | | |
Preceded by | Sleeping Murder | |
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Followed by | Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories |
An Autobiography is the title of the recollections of
Overview
She wrote this allegedly from 2 April 1950 - 11 October 1965 meaning it took her 15 years. Christie provides a
After Christie's death in 1976, the text was edited by Philip Ziegler of Collins in conjunction with Rosalind and her husband, Anthony.[3] There is no record of Christie herself making any further alterations to the text in her lifetime. In the 1965 epilogue she stated that, "now that I have reached the age of seventy-five, it seems the right moment to stop…I live now on borrowed time, waiting in the ante-room for the summons that will inevitably come…I am ready now to accept death."[4] Consequently, there is no mention of her later works, the award of the DBE in 1971 or successes such as the 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express. She also admitted that she didn't follow a strict chronological and detailed order of the events of her life, instead wanting to "plunge my hand into a lucky dip and come up with a handful of assorted memories".[5] The published work does mostly follow a chronological order (although how much of that is due to the work carried out in 1976–77 is not known); however, the book is by no means comprehensive. Upon publication there was an expectation that an explanation would be offered of her famous 1926 disappearance but none is forthcoming. The publisher's preface anticipates any disappointment felt when they admit to this omission on the first page but state, "the references elsewhere to an earlier attack on amnesia give the clue to the true course of events."[6]
Christie was enamoured all her life with the happiness of her childhood[7] and her loving relationship with her mother[8] and this is reflected in the text of An Autobiography. Within the 544 pages, the first appearance of her first husband, Archie Christie, does not take place until page 212 (as opposed to page 57 out of 394 in her official biography) and the death of Christie's mother in April 1926 (an event which triggered the events of that calamitous year in her life and which happened in her thirty-fifth year), does not occur until page 346. Christie deals sympathetically with her first husband, relating details of the initial happiness of their courtship and married life and devoting an entire chapter to the events of their round the world trip between 20 January to 1 December 1922. Christie tells of the events of 1926 with the death of her mother, her slow breakdown, her husband's adultery and the end of her marriage in just seven pages admitting when she begins the passage that, "The next year of my life is one I hate recalling"[9] and concluding, "So, after illness, came sorrow, despair, and heartbreak. There is no need to dwell on it. I stood out for a year, hoping he (Archie) would change. But he did not. So ended my first married life."[6] In contrast, Christie's official biography devotes three entire chapters out of twenty-six to the events of that year.
Christie confines the events of 1945 to 1965 to just twenty-three pages. Most of her works are mentioned in passing but no great detail is given of any of them apart from the ones that are firm milestones in her career (e.g. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Mousetrap). Her concentration is on her love of travel and the people in her life. By not writing at length about some of her works she caused some annoyance or disappointment, such as that described by Hubert Gregg, the director of six of her plays who, in his 1980 memoir Agatha Christie and All That Mousetrap, spoke with some disparagement of Christie, stating at one point, "She owed an enormous debt to Peter Saunders yet in her autobiography she gives him scant mention. Speaking of The Unexpected Guest (which Gregg directed) she says quite simply that she wrote it. I think perhaps she didn't like to confess – to herself, even – that her theatrical accomplishments could not be achieved without help."[10] However, Janet Morgan, Christie's official biographer, considered the Autobiography to be "an enchanting book, fluent, pungent, clear-eyed about the times and circumstances in which she lived, funny about herself and other people".[11]
The first edition contains four pages of colour plates of oil paintings of Christie and her family from the late 19th and early 20th century which do not appear in later editions.
Publication history
- 1977, William Collins and Sons (London), November 1977, Hardcover, 544 pp ISBN 0-00-216012-9
- 1977, Dodd, Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 529 pp, ISBN 0-396-07516-9
- 1977, Scherz (Bern, Munich, Vienna), named "Meine gute alte Zeit" (My good old times) and translated into German by Hans Erik Hausner. Paperback, 539 pp., ISBN 3-502-51515-8
- 1978, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins), Paperback, 576 pp
- 1978, ISBN 84-272-1801-X
- 1978, ISBN 0-345-27646-9
- 1978, Ulverscroft ISBN 0-7089-0255-3(Both volumes)
- 2002, Lyhnari (Greece), named "Η Αυτοβιογραφία μου" (My autobiography) and translated into Greek by Hilda Papadimitriou. Paperback, 528 pp ISBN 960-517-258-5
- 1993, HarperCollins (London), Paperback, 559 pp, ISBN 9780006353287
- 2003, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore (Italy), named "La mia vita" and translated to Italian by Maria Giulia Castagnone. 560 pp., ISBN 8804522259
- 2008, Partvonal (Hungary) named "Életem" (My Life) and translated to Hungarian by Tibor Kállai. 652 pp. ISBN 9789634796091
References
- ISBN 0-00-216012-9
- ISBN 0-00-216330-6
- ^ Morgan. (Page 377)
- ^ Autobiography (Page 529)
- ^ Autobiography (Page 12)
- ^ a b Autobiography (Page 9)
- ISBN 978-0-7553-1487-4
- ^ Thompson (Page 12)
- ^ Autobiography (Page 346)
- ISBN 0-7183-0427-6
- ^ Morgan. (Page 378)