Sunday 2 August 2015

Agatha Christie


These are very wise words from Agatha Christie, she seemed to know people so well, perhaps that's the reason for her continued popularity in her books, who can tell?

The reason I am so fascinated by Agatha Christie, is she wrote with such flair that from the beginning of her books you were instantly hooked. I loved the 1930's era, the smart clothes,music, manners, Art Deco designed buildings and furniture and the fondness of times gone by.




My favourite of all her characters is Miss.Jane Marple. Who has been bought to life on the big screen by many famous actresses including Margaret Rutherford, Helen Hays and more recently Geraldine McEwan. In the stories Miss.Marple comes across at first as a weak old lady from St.Mary Mead.  





What the reader knows though is she has one of the quickest brains, and because of this camaraderie with the character the reader is kept interested.

The chapters of Agatha's books, were usually kept quite short, there was only usually a handful of characters and each character had hidden secrets. There were the usual red herrings thrown in to make you doubt whether your original thoughts on 'who dunnit' were indeed correct.




Thanks to Agatha's unique gift of story telling she was able to amass enough wealth to buy Greenaway in Devon which is set in a beautiful location on a hill above the River Dart, and is now owned by the national trust and opened to the public. If you ever get the chance to visit there, it is well worth it, and if you are a budding author, you never know it may inspire you to write your own masterpiece.

2 comments:

  1. How interesting, how old was she when she wrote her first novel?

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  2. Thanks Sonia for your question, I believe it was when she was 18 and her sister Maud dared her to enter a competition.

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