Agatha Christie: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction - Paperback

by J. C. Bernthal (Author), Elizabeth Foxwell (Editor)

The undisputed "Queen of Crime," Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the bestselling novelist of all time. As the creator of immortal detectives Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, she continues to enthrall readers around the world and is drawing increasing attention from scholars, historians, and critics. But Christie wrote far beyond Poirot and Marple. A varied life including war work, archaeology, and two very different marriages provided the backdrop to a diverse body of work.

This encyclopedic companion summarizes and explores Christie's entire literary output, including the detective fiction, plays, radio dramas, adaptations, and her little-studied non-crime writing. It details all published works and key themes and characters, as well as the people and places that inspired them, and identifies a trove of uncollected interviews, articles, and unpublished material, including details that have never appeared in print. For the casual reader looking for background information on their favorite mystery to the dedicated scholar tracking down elusive new angles, this companion will provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date information.

Author Biography

J.C. Bernthal is a visiting fellow at the University of Suffolk, UK. He has authored or edited several volumes on Agatha Christie and in 2020, won the Popular Culture Association's George N. Dove Award for advancing crime fiction scholarship. Series Editor Elizabeth Foxwell, an Agatha Award winner, serves as managing editor of Clues: A Journal of Detection and is an editor at McFarland.