Even though you may not recognize her, you probably know who she is.
"Words, madmoiselle, are only the outer clothing of ideas."
I remember the first time I came across an Agatha Christie novel. Someone handed it to me, and my little petulant self, who was adamant that I would only read nonfiction for the rest of my life, thought: "ew, why would I ever read *that*?"
Many years later and I can't help but feel a little embarrassed every time I recall this incident. Nobody should ever say "ew" to anything written by Agatha Christie.
Even those who don't particularly enjoy what she writes should take a moment to appreciate how fantastic must be the brain of someone who, like her, is able to produce so many books and write so many original stories filled with so many details; (she wrote ninety-three books and seventeen plays, including the longest-running play of modern-day theater, The Mousetrap).
However, despite earning a position in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's best-selling novelist with sales of over four billion books (!!!!), Christie didn't always find writing easy:
“There is no agony like it. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off.’”
Certainly, the little girl holding her dolls in the photo below had to put in some effort and dedicate herself to become who she became: a legend in the world of thrillers, mysteries, and crime novels.
Christie's Life
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890 in Torquay, Devon, South West England into a comfortably well off middle class family. What made her upbringing unusual, even for its time, was that she was home schooled largely by her father, an American. Her mother, Clara, who was an excellent storyteller, did not want her to learn to read until she was eight but Agatha, bored and as the only child at home (she was a much loved “afterthought” with two older siblings) taught herself to read by the age of five.
Where did her creativity come from? She absorbed the children’s stories of the time - Edith Nesbit (The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Railway Children) and Louisa M Alcott (Little Women) but also poetry and startling thrillers from America. Agatha invented imaginary friends, played with her animals, attended dance classes and began writing poems when she was still a child. Read more
“There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don’t want to, don’t much like what you’re writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.”