The mystery case that I want to talk about today is very familiar to everyone, that is: Agatha Christie, known as the "queen of suspense novels" in the United Kingdom, that is, the "grandmother" in the mouth of the majority of Chinese novel fans and fans who have changed dramas.
To say that Agatha's popularity in China is mainly derived from the film and television masterpieces that have been continuously adapted from her novels over the years. For example, some time ago, circle brother just recommended that this year's new remake of "Ordeal by innocence" (poke the left blue character can be reviewed)▼
It has also been remade countless times, and the 2015 version also touted the british new "husband" aidan turner's "and then there were none"▼
As for the more famous "murder on the orient express", there is no need to introduce more brothers, and last year's latest version of the movie is a collection of big traffic players such as Uncle Depp, as well as acting schools such as Judy Dench and Penelope Cruz
(The above 3 figures are from imdb)
But in fact, Agatha's achievements are far higher than the crazy remakes of her works by the British after her death. With the speed of her hands as fast as her brain, she has written a total of 66 detective novels! In addition, she has written 3 poetry books and 16 screenplays, not counting her autobiography and editorial works...
In the 42 years since Agatha's death in 1976, her detective novels alone have sold about 2 billion!
(Image from amreading)
However, what perhaps few Chinese friends know is that Agatha, who is famous for her suspenseful detective novels, has also experienced an event that is as bizarre as her work:
In 1926, at the age of 36, Agatha "evaporated" for a full 10 days without warning. During her disappearance, about 15,000 people were involved in the search and rescue operation; however, 10 days later, she returned to public view and claimed to have lost her memory. The sensation of her disappearance was so great that she appeared on the front pages of major British newspapers.
In 1926, the Daily Mirror published news on the front page about Agatha's disappearance and the progress of the search and rescue. (Image from pinterest)
What happened during this period is still inconclusive, but it does not prevent Agatha's bizarre disappearance and amnesia from becoming an event that is as enjoyable and memorable as her novels.
Recently, Andrew Wilson, a columnist for The British Telegraph, once again did what he could to try to crack Agatha's "missing case".
Looking for Agatha: 15,000 people in 10 days
Agatha's disappearance begins with her divorce with her first husband, Archibald Christie.
Wilson found Agatha's divorce record in a mountain of yellowed paper piled up at London's national archives. It can be seen from the inside that Agatha and Archibald married in 1914 and gave birth to their only daughter, Rosalind, in 1919. The marriage officially came to an end in 1928, two years after Agatha's disappearance.
(Image from itv)
And just like Agatha's novel, her disappearance is mixed with the dispute of divorce, and the divorce is full of the shadow of Xiao San, and the emotional entanglement and suspense elements are completely twin-like existence.
When she and Archibald filed for divorce, Agatha lived in the southern city of Torquay in her native Devon, while Archibald, a pilot and businessman, lived at the royal air force club in London.
Documents Wilson found from the National Archives indicate that Archibald had multiple records of adultery, but that, due to chronological conventions, did not mention the specific names of the lovers.
Agatha and Archibald on their wedding day in 1914. (Image courtesy of art and architecture)
The archive documents did not record more information, but this did not prevent the British media from digging into the story behind the best-selling author Agatha.
The divorce was filed by Archibald in December 1926 to marry his young lover, Nancy Neele. As soon as the divorce was filed, Agatha disappeared and her car was spotted in a remote scenic area in Surrey. British police dispatched 15,000 volunteers, search and rescue dogs and planes to look for clues; police even suspected she had been murdered by Archibald.
When the newspaper published the search notice, in addition to the appearance of Agatha when she disappeared, it was also equipped with her "possible disguise" appearance. (Image from The Independent)
Ten days later, Agatha appeared at the Swan Hydropathic hotel in Harrogate.
Strangely enough, she used the surname "Neil" of archibald's lover for check-in, while many witnesses told the police and the media that they saw her singing and dancing in the hotel, playing billiards, and introducing herself to the hotel guests from South Africa and losing a child.
The trough of life: the death of the mother, the cheating of the husband
This month, The British Sky Art Channel has just performed the disappearance in 1926 in the adventure comedy TV series "Urban Myths".
However, Agatha in 1926 did not have any comedy in her life experience, but was full of frustration and pain.
Stills from Sky TV's Urban Legends Agatha episode. (Image from comedy.co.uk)
In April of that year, her mother Clara died, which for Agatha, who had a deep mother-daughter relationship, was equivalent to losing her best friend and creating a self-identity crisis.
Agatha later recalled that one day, while sorting through her mother's belongings at her former ashfield, she found herself forgetting who she was, because she had written the names of characters in the novel by the writer William Thackeray when she wrote the check.
Agatha ( right ) , 5 years old , with her mother. (Image from pinterest)
Later that year, when Archibald returned from London to Torquay to celebrate her daughter's 7th birthday, Agatha was keenly aware that her husband had changed his mind. When he filed for divorce, he confessed to Agatha that he had met a beautiful, dark-haired girl, ten years younger than her. Agatha later wrote in her autobiography:
"I think that after these words, my happy, successful, and confident life is over. Of course, everything was not so sudden, because I couldn't believe it at all. ”
The couple tried to bridge their differences for their daughter, but Agatha described in her autobiography that the extremely selfish Archibald did not want to miss the opportunity to find happiness with the new lover, and the two finally married in 1928. "I told you a long time ago," he said to Agatha, "I hate it when people are sick or unhappy and ruin my good life." ”
Middle-aged Agatha was at home in Devon. (Image courtesy of The Telegraph)
As mentioned earlier, after Agatha disappeared in December 1926, one of the clues of the Surrey police investigation was to suspect that Archibald had killed his wife so that he could marry "Little Three" in an honorable manner.
In 1934, Agatha published her work Unfinished Portrait under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott described the process of a marriage breaking up in a semi-fictional way.
Archibald's character in the book is portrayed as a coward and a potential murderer. Celia (Agatha's counterpart) fears that her husband, Demot (Archibald), will poison her, so she locks up a packet of herbicide in the garden shed in advance. "He wanted her to die," Agatha wrote in the novel, "and he must have wanted him to die, or she wouldn't be afraid to be like that." ”
Say nothing about the disappearance: why bother?
After Agatha was discovered at Harrogate's hotel, the so-called "amnesia" was confirmed by a psychiatrist, and the diagnosis showed that her amnesia was "very severe". Even so, some people believe in the amnesia theory, and some people feel that there is another hidden feeling behind it.
Agatha in her youth. (Image courtesy29)
For years, there have been speculations that she suffers from dissociative wandering disorder (a condition often caused by mental trauma that includes a loss of identity), and another writer speculating that Agatha's "self-directed act" was to win back her husband's love. If that was her motive, the goal ended in failure: Archibald was horrified by the subsequent scandal and strengthened his determination to leave Agatha.
Some critics have even declared that Agatha's disappearance was merely an attempt to raise public awareness. She published only six novels, including the murder of roger ackroyd, published in early 1926.
"It was because of her disappearance that the book attracted a great deal of attention." Joan Acocella analyzed in The New Yorker in 2010 that "her disappearance has an interesting connection to detective fiction that has made her a celebrity." ”
Elderly Agatha. (Image from bt.com)
Agatha refused to talk about the disappearance for the rest of her life, and her 560-page autobiography published after her death made no mention of it. She summed up the experience this way: "Illness, then, is followed by sadness, despair and heartbreak. Why bother. ”
Instead, Agatha's autobiography focuses on her happy childhood spent in the seaside city of Torquay. She was an imaginative and sensitive child, often making up her own stories, but her first novel, Mysterious Affair at Styles, stemmed from a bet with her sister: Madge, bet that Agatha was too stupid to write a detective novel.
In 1920, at the age of 30, Agatha published her first work, but earned only £25, compared with her husband Archibald's annual salary of £500. Four years later, the rights to the novel series "The Man in the Brown Suit" brought her an income equivalent to her husband's annual salary.
She used the money to buy her beloved Maurice Cowley, the car she drove on the night of her disappearance.
The cover of "The Man in Brown" that made Agatha famous in her early years. (Image from audiobookstore)
Trying to find yourself, borrowing characters to express emotions
In December 1927, when she and her husband's divorce proceedings began in the High Court of Justice, she suddenly realized that she had to rely on herself without his husband's financial support. She signed a contract to write novels, and although she wasn't in the mood to write, she knew she had no other choice.
In January 1927, Agatha came to the Canary Islands with her daughter Rosalind and her secretary, forcing herself to complete the novel The Mystery of the Blue Train.
"At that moment, I began the metamorphosis from amateur writer to professional writer," she wrote in her autobiography, "I think the trouble of professional writers is that they have to write when they don't want to write, don't like to write things, and even write badly." The novel, published in 1928, was one of her least popular works, and she often wondered "how did such a bad book come about?"
Agatha costume on display at the Torquay Museum in her hometown. (Image courtesy of tripadvisor)
If Agatha hadn't divorced, would she have become the world's best-selling novelist? This has been controversial.
Archibald was a financial adviser to the British Empire Exhibition in 1922, when Agatha traveled to many parts of the world, but then she felt she was at a crossroads and didn't know where to go. "I should find myself back and figure out if I'm completely dependent on others, which is exactly what I'm afraid of," she says. ”
Perhaps it was the divorce from Archibald that made Agatha creative and inspired, pushing her to broaden her horizons and create more works.
Itv documentary short film "Agatha's Secret" stills. (Image from itv)
In the autumn of 1928, Agatha Christie, 38, took the Orient Train alone to Damascus, then to Baghdad and south to the ancient Mesopotamian city of ur.
It is a well-known archaeological excavation site where in 1930 she met her second husband, max Mallowan, an archaeologist 14 years younger than her, and the two were happily married. Every winter, Agatha accompanied Max to archaeological excavations in the Near East.
Left is Agatha's second husband, Max Marlowe. (Image from pinterest)
But the divorce from Archibald also had an impact on her work: her early works explored the evil that people hid under the light of responsibility, but the brutal life experience of divorce provided strength and plot to her greatest writings.
In the period following her divorce, she wrote some of the most popular works, such as The Murder at the Vicarage, Peril at End House, and the famous Murder on the Orient Express.
Stills from the 1974 version of the film Murder on the Orient Express. (Image from imdb)
When Agatha's first husband said he was leaving her, it was the trough of her life, and she later said that it was when she suddenly realized that his appearance was inconsistent. Childhood nightmares haunted her, as if an evil presence had sneaked into the bodies of those around her. "He's still doing the same thing he's done with people, but he's not Archibald anymore." She once wrote.
In the novel "Unfinished Portrait", the heroine Celia also expressed the same emotion. After her husband left her for another woman, she intended to cut herself off. As Agatha's second husband, Max Marlowen, put it, in Celia "we found the closest person to Agatha's portrait." ”
(Image from abebooks)
Agatha has been dead for so long, but her life experiences are as suspenseful and tense as the novels, which is undoubtedly the reason why she has always been remembered by the British.