Hickory
Hickory at Morton Arboretum Accession 29-U-10
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Fagales
Family:	Juglandaceae
Subfamily:	Juglandoideae
Tribe:	Juglandeae
Subtribe:	Caryinae[1]
Genus:	Carya Nutt.
Type species
Carya tomentosa (Poir.) Nutt.[2]
Species
See text

Trees in the genus Carya (Ancient Greek: κάρυον "nut") are commonly known as hickory, derived from the Powhatan language of Virginia. The genus includes 17–19 species of deciduous trees with pinnately compound leaves and big nuts. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (State of Assam), 11 or 12 are from the United States, two to four are from Canada and four are found in Mexico.

Another Asian species, beaked hickory, previously listed as Carya sinensis, is now treated in a separate genus, Annamocarya, as Annamocarya sinensis.

Hickory flowers are small, yellow-green catkins produced in spring. They are wind-pollinated and self-incompatible. The fruit is a globose or oval nut, 2–5 cm (0.79–2.0 in) long and 1.5–3 cm (0.59–1.2 in) diameter, enclosed in a four-valved husk, which splits open at maturity. The nut shell is thick and bony in most species, and thin in a few, notably C. illinoinensis; it is divided into two halves, which split apart when the seed germinates.

Species and classification[link]

In the APG system, genus Carya (and the whole Juglandaceae family) has been recently moved to the Fagales order.

Asia

• Carya sect. Sinocarya – Asian hickories
  • Carya dabieshanensis M.C. Liu – Dabie Shan Hickory (may be synonymous with C. cathayensis)
  • Carya cathayensis Sarg. – Chinese Hickory
  • Carya hunanensis W.C.Cheng & R.H.Chang – Hunan Hickory
  • Carya kweichowensis Kuang & A.M.Lu – Guizhou Hickory
  • Carya poilanei Leroy - Poilane's Hickory
  • Carya tonkinensis Lecomte – Vietnamese Hickory^[3]

North America

• Carya sect. Carya – typical hickories
  • Carya floridana Sarg. – Scrub Hickory
  • Carya glabra (Mill.) Sweet – Pignut Hickory, Pignut, Sweet Pignut, Coast Pignut Hickory, Smoothbark Hickory, Swamp Hickory, Broom Hickory
  • Carya myristiciformis (F.Michx.) Nutt. – Nutmeg Hickory, Swamp Hickory, Bitter Water Hickory
  • Carya ovalis (Wangenh.) Sarg. – Red Hickory, Spicebark Hickory, Sweet Pignut Hickory (treated as a synonym of C. glabra by Flora N. Amer.)
  • Carya ovata (Mill.) K.Koch – Shagbark Hickory
    • Carya ovata var. ovata – Northern Shagbark Hickory
    • Carya ovata var. australis – Southern Shagbark Hickory, Carolina Hickory (syn. C. carolinae-septentrionalis)
  • Carya laciniosa (Mill.) K.Koch – Shellbark Hickory, Shagbark Hickory, Bigleaf Shagbark Hickory, Kingnut, Big Shellbark, Bottom Shellbark, Thick Shellbark, Western Shellbark
  • Carya pallida (Ashe) Engl. & Graebn. – Sand Hickory
  • Carya texana Buckley – Black Hickory
  • Carya tomentosa (Poir.) Nutt. – Mockernut Hickory (syn. C. alba)
  • †Carya washingtonensis - Manchester Extinct Miocene

• Carya sect. Apocarya – pecans
  • Carya aquatica (F.Michx.) Nutt. – Bitter pecan or Water Hickory
  • Carya cordiformis (Wangenh.) K.Koch – Bitternut Hickory
  • Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) K.Koch – Pecan
  • Carya palmeri W.E. Manning – Mexican Hickory

Carya cordiformis (bitternut hickory) foliage

Ripe hickory nuts ready to fall, Andrews, SC

Ecology[link]

Hickory is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species. These include:

• Luna moth (Actias luna)
• Brown-tail (Euproctis chrysorrhoea)
• Coleophora case-bearers, C. laticornella and C. ostryae
• Regal moths (Citheronia regalis), whose caterpillars are known as hickory horn-devils
• Walnut sphinx (Amorpha juglandis)
• The Bride (nominate subspecies Catocala neogama neogama)

The hickory leaf stem gall phylloxera (Phylloxera caryaecaulis) also uses the hickory tree as a food source. Phylloxeridae are related to aphids and have a similarly complex life cycle. Eggs hatch in early spring and the galls quickly form around the developing insects. Phylloxera galls may damage weakened or stressed hickories, but are generally harmless. Deformed leaves and twigs can rain down from the tree in the spring as squirrels break off infected tissue and eat the galls, possibly for the protein content or because the galls are fleshy and tasty to the squirrels.

The banded hickory borer (Knulliana cincta) is also found on hickories.

Tryma[link]

Some fruits are borderline and difficult to categorize. Hickory nuts (Carya) and walnuts (Juglans) in the Juglandaceae family grow within an outer husk; these fruits are technically drupes or drupaceous nuts, and thus not true botanical nuts. "Tryma" is a specialized term for such nut-like drupes.^[4][5]

Comparison of North American Carya nuts

Uses[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010)

Hickory wood is very hard, stiff, dense and shock resistant. There are woods that are stronger than hickory and woods that are harder, but the combination of strength, toughness, hardness, and stiffness found in hickory wood is not found in any other commercial wood.^[6] It is used for tool handles, bows, wheel spokes, carts, drumsticks, lacrosse stick handles, golf club shafts (sometimes still called hickory stick, even though made of steel or graphite), the bottom of skis, walking sticks and for punitive use as a switch (like hazel), and especially as a cane-like hickory stick in schools and use by parents. Paddles are often made from hickory. Baseball bats were formerly made of hickory, but are now more commonly made of ash. Hickory is replacing ash as the wood of choice for Scottish shinty sticks (also known as camans). Hickory was extensively used for the construction of early aircraft.

Hickory is also highly prized for wood-burning stoves, because of its high energy content. Hickory wood is also a preferred type for smoking cured meats. In the Southern United States, hickory is popular for cooking barbecue, as hickory grows abundantly in the region, and adds flavor to the meat. Hickory is sometimes used for wood flooring due to its durability and character.

A bark extract from shagbark hickory is also used in an edible syrup similar to maple syrup, with a slightly bitter, smoky taste.

The nuts of some species are palatable, while others are bitter and only suitable for animal feed. Shagbark and shellbark hickory, along with pecan, are regarded by some as the finest nut trees.

When cultivated for their nuts, clonal (grafted) trees of the same cultivar cannot pollinate each other because of their self-incompatibility. Two or more cultivars must be planted together for successful pollination. Seedlings (grown from hickory nuts) will usually have sufficient genetic variation.

See also[link]

• Walnut
• Hican

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Philips, Roger. Trees of North America and Europe, Random House, Inc., New York ISBN 0-394-50259-0, 1979.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carya

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Hickory.

• Flora of North America: Carya
• Flora of China: Carya
• USDA Agricultural Research Service: Carya
• Edibility of different species' nuts, from a snack food manufacturer
• Comparison of eastern North American hickories at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu
• Comparison of hickory nuts at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu
• USDA Plants Database Profile for Carya (hickory)
• The northern shagbark hickory

Dame Agatha Christie DBE
Born	Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller (1890-09-15)15 September 1890 Torquay, Devon, England
Died	12 January 1976(1976-01-12) (aged 85) Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England
Pen name	Mary Westmacott
Occupation	Novelist/Short story writer/Playwright/Poet
Nationality	British
Genres	Murder mystery, Thriller, Crime fiction, Detective, Romances
Literary movement	Golden Age of Detective Fiction
Spouse(s)	Archibald Christie (1914–1928) Max Mallowan (1930–1976; her death)
Children	Rosalind Hicks (1919–2004)
Influences Edgar Allan Poe, Anna Katherine Green, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton
Signature
www.agathachristie.com

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and more than 15 short story collections (especially those featuring Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple), and her successful West End plays.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the most widely published books.^[1] According to Index Translationum, Christie is the most translated individual author, with only the collective corporate works of Walt Disney Productions surpassing her.^[2] Her books have been translated into at least 103 languages.^[3]

Agatha Christie published two autobiographies: a posthumous one covering childhood to old age; and another chronicling several seasons of archaeological excavation in Syria and Iraq with her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan. The latter was published in 1946 with the title, Come, Tell Me How You Live.

Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is still running after more than 24,600 performances.^[4] In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. Many of her books and short stories have been filmed, some more than once (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and 4.50 from Paddington for instance), and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.

In 1968, Booker Books, a subsidiary of the agri-industrial conglomerate Booker-McConnell, bought a 51 percent stake in Agatha Christie Limited, the private company that Christie had set up for tax purposes. Booker later increased its stake to 64 percent. In 1998, Booker sold its shares to Chorion, a company whose portfolio also includes the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.^[5]

In 2004, a 5,000-word story entitled The Incident of the Dog's Ball was found in the attic of the author's daughter. This story was the original version of the novel Dumb Witness. It was published in Britain in September 2009 in John Curran's Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years Of Mysteries, alongside another newly discovered Poirot story called The Capture of Cerberus (a story with the same title, but a different plot, to that published in The Labours Of Hercules).^[6] On 10 November 2009, Reuters announced that The Incident of the Dog's Ball will be published by The Strand Magazine.^[7]

Life and career[link]

Early life and first marriage[link]

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England, UK. Her mother, Clarissa Margaret Boehmer (called Clara),^{[citation needed]} was the daughter of a British Army captain^[8] but had been sent as a child to live with her mother's sister, who was the second wife of a wealthy American. Eventually Clara married her stepfather's son from his first marriage, Frederick Alvah Miller, an American stockbroker. Thus, the two women Agatha called "Grannie" were sisters. Despite her father's nationality as a "New Yorker" and her aunt's relation to the Pierpont Morgans, Agatha never claimed United States citizenship or connection.^[9]

Agatha was the youngest of three. The Millers had two other children: Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, who was 11 years Agatha's senior, and Louis Montant Miller (1880–1929), called Monty, 10 years older than Agatha. Later, in her autobiography, Agatha would refer to her brother as "an amiable scapegrace of a brother".^[10]

Agatha described herself as having had a very happy childhood. While she never received any formal schooling, she did not lack an education. Her mother believed children should not learn to read until they were eight, but Agatha taught herself to read at four. Her father taught her mathematics via story problems, and the family played question-and-answer games much like today's Trivial Pursuit. She had piano lessons, which she liked, and dance lessons, which she did not. When she could not learn French through formal instruction, the family hired a young woman who spoke nothing but French to be her nanny and companion. Agatha made up stories from a very early age and invented a number of imaginary friends and paracosms. One of them, "The School", with a dozen or so imaginary young women of widely varying temperaments, lasted well into her adult years.^[11]

During the First World War, she was part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) who provided nursing services. She worked at a hospital in Torquay as a nurse; she liked the profession, calling it "one of the most rewarding professions that anyone can follow".^[12] Also as part of the VAD, she later worked at a hospital pharmacy, a job that influenced her work, as many of the murders in her books are carried out with poison.

Despite a turbulent courtship, on Christmas Eve 1914 Agatha married Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps.^[13] The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks. Agatha's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1920. When Archie was offered a job organising a world tour to promote the British Empire Exhibition the couple left their daughter with Agatha's mother and sister and travelled to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii.^[14] The couple learnt to surf prone in South Africa and in Waikiki became some of the first Britons to surf standing up.^[15]

Disappearance[link]

In late 1926, Agatha's husband, Archie, revealed that he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce. On 8 December 1926 the couple quarrelled, and Archie Christie left their house Styles in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public, many of whom were admirers of her novels. Despite a massive manhunt, she was not found for 11 days.^[16]

On 19 December 1926 Agatha was identified as a guest at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel^[17]) in Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she was registered as 'Mrs Teresa Neele' from Cape Town. Agatha gave no account of her disappearance. Although two doctors had diagnosed her as suffering from psychogenic fugue, opinion remains divided as to the reasons for her disappearance. One suggestion is that she had suffered a nervous breakdown brought about by a natural propensity for depression, exacerbated by her mother's death earlier that year and the discovery of her husband's infidelity. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, with many believing it a publicity stunt while others speculated she was trying to make the police believe her husband had killed her.^[18]

Author Jared Cade interviewed numerous witnesses and relatives for his sympathetic biography, Agatha Christie and the Missing Eleven Days, and provided a substantial amount of evidence to suggest that Christie planned the entire disappearance to embarrass her husband, never thinking it would escalate into the melodrama it became.^[19]

The Christies divorced in 1928. During their marriage, Agatha published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.

Second marriage and later life[link]

Agatha Christie's room at the Pera Palace Hotel, where she wrote Murder on the Orient Express.

Agatha Christie blue plaque. No. 58 Sheffield Terrace, Kensington & Chelsea, London

In 1930, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan (Sir Max from 1968) after joining him in an archaeological dig. Their marriage was especially happy in the early years and remained so until Christie's death in 1976.^[20] Max introduced her to various wines (“But you never drink ... Heaven knows, I’ve tried hard enough with you”), but acknowledged defeat, and had the battle of obtaining water for her in restaurants. She also tried unsuccessfully to make herself like cigarettes by smoking one after lunch and one after dinner every day for six months.^[21]

Christie frequently used settings which were familiar to her for her stories. Christie's travels with Mallowan contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author.^[22] The Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the National Trust.

Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: the short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, which is in the story collection of the same name, and the novel After the Funeral. "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Chimneys, Stoneygates, and other houses in her stories are mostly Abney in various forms."^[23]

During the Second World War, Christie worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital, London, where she acquired a knowledge of poisons that she put to good use in her post-war crime novels. For example, the use of thallium as a poison was suggested to her by UCH Chief Pharmacist Harold Davis (later appointed Chief Pharmacist at the UK Ministry of Health), and in The Pale Horse, published in 1961, she employed it to dispatch a series of victims, the first clue to the murder method coming from the victims' loss of hair. So accurate was her description of thallium poisoning that on at least one occasion it helped solve a case that was baffling doctors.^[24]

To honour her many literary works, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956 New Year Honours.^[25] The next year, she became the President of the Detection Club.^[26] In the 1971 New Year Honours she was promoted Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire,^[27] three years after her husband had been knighted for his archaeological work in 1968.^[28] They were one of the few married couples where both partners were honoured in their own right. From 1968, due to her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled as Lady Mallowan.

Agatha Christie's gravestone in Cholsey.

From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, although she continued to write. In 1975, sensing her increasing weakness, Christie signed over the rights of her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson.^[20] Recently, using experimental textual tools of analysis, Canadian researchers have suggested that Christie may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementia.^{[29][30][31][32]}

Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her Winterbrook House in the north of Cholsey parish, adjoining Wallingford in Oxfordshire (formerly part of Berkshire). She is buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey.

Christie's only child, Rosalind Margaret Hicks, died, also aged 85, on 28 October 2004 from natural causes in Torbay, Devon.^[33] Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, was heir to the copyright to some of his grandmother's literary work (including The Mousetrap) and is still associated with Agatha Christie Limited.

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple[link]

Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories.

Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Tuesday Night Club in 1927 (short story) and was based on women like Christie's grandmother and her "cronies".^[34]

During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, Curtain, and Sleeping Murder, intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.

Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot “insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep." However, unlike Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot.^[35]

In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, it is interesting to note that the Belgian detective's titles outnumber the Marple titles more than two to one. This is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in her career, while The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s.

Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording, recently rediscovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady".^[34]

Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain. It appeared on the front page of the paper on 6 August 1975.^[36]

Following the great success of Curtain, Dame Agatha gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976 but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder despite the fact he is noted as having died in books published earlier. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular life in St. Mary Mead.

On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person.^[37] The evidence of Christie's working methods, as described by successive biographers, contradicts this claim.^{[citation needed]}

Formula and plot devices[link]

Almost all of Agatha Christie's books are whodunits, focusing on the British middle and upper classes. Usually, the detective either stumbles across the murder or is called upon by an old acquaintance, who is somehow involved. Gradually, the detective interrogates each suspect, examines the scene of the crime and makes a note of each clue, so readers can analyse it and be allowed a fair chance of solving the mystery themselves. Then, about halfway through, or sometimes even during the final act, one of the suspects usually dies, often because they have inadvertently deduced the killer's identity and need silencing. In a few of her novels, including Death Comes as the End and And Then There Were None, there are multiple victims. Finally, the detective organises a meeting of all the suspects and slowly denounces the guilty party, exposing several unrelated secrets along the way, sometimes over the course of thirty or so pages. The murders are often extremely ingenious, involving some convoluted piece of deception.

Christie's stories are also known for their taut atmosphere and strong psychological suspense, developed from the deliberately slow pace of her prose.

Seven stories are inspired by a nursery rhyme : And Then There Were None by Ten Little Indians; One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by One, Two, Buckle My Shoe; Five Little Pigs by This Little Piggy; Crooked House by There Was a Crooked Man; A Pocket Full of Rye by Sing a Song of Sixpence,;Hickory Dickory Dock by Hickory Dickory Dock, and Three Blind Mice by Three Blind Mice.

Twice, the murderer surprisingly turns out to be the unreliable narrator of the story.

In six stories, Christie allows the murderer to escape justice (and in the case of the last three, implicitly almost approves of their crimes); these are The Witness for the Prosecution, Five Little Pigs, The Man in the Brown Suit, Murder on the Orient Express, Curtain and The Unexpected Guest. (When Christie adapted Witness into a stage play, she lengthened the ending so that the murderer was also killed.) There are also numerous instances where the killer is not brought to justice in the legal sense but instead dies (death usually being presented as a more 'sympathetic' outcome), for example Death Comes as the End, And Then There Were None, Death on the Nile, Dumb Witness, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Crooked House, Appointment with Death, The Hollow, Nemesis, Cat Among the Pigeons, and The Secret Adversary. In some cases this is with the collusion of the detective involved. In some stories the question of whether formal justice will be done is left unresolved, such as Five Little Pigs, and arguably Ordeal by Innocence.

Critical reception[link]

Many critics regarded Christie's plotting abilities as considerably exceeding her literary ones. The American novelist Raymond Chandler criticised her in his essay, "The Simple Art of Murder", and the American literary critic Edmund Wilson was dismissive of Christie and the detective fiction genre generally in his New Yorker essay, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?".^[38]

Others have criticised Christie on political grounds, particularly with respect to her conversations about and portrayals of Jews. Christopher Hitchens, in his autobiography, describes a dinner with Christie and her husband, Max Mallowan, that became increasingly uncomfortable as the night wore on, where "The anti-Jewish flavour of the talk was not to be ignored or overlooked, or put down to heavy humour or generational prejudice. It was vividly unpleasant..."^[39]

Stereotyping[link]

Christie occasionally inserted stereotyped descriptions of characters into her work, particularly before the end of the Second World War (when such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), and particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans. For example, in the first editions of the collection The Mysterious Mr Quin (1930), in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier," she described "Hebraic men with hook-noses wearing rather flamboyant jewellery"; in later editions the passage was edited to describe "sallow men" wearing same. To contrast with the more stereotyped descriptions, Christie often characterised the "foreigners" in such a way as to make the reader understand and sympathise with them; this is particularly true of her Jewish characters, who are seldom actually criminals. (See, for example, the character of Oliver Manders in Three Act Tragedy.)^[40]

Archaeology and Agatha Christie[link]

Christie had always had an interest in archaeology.

"The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint, through the sand was romantic. The carefulness of lifting pots and objects from the soil filled me with a longing to be an archaeologist myself."

-Christie expressing her interest in archaeology, a passage from An Autobiography (London, 1984), p. 389^[41]

On a trip to the excavation site at Ur in 1948, she met her future husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, a distinguished archaeologist, but her fame as an author far surpassed his fame in archaeology.^[42] Prior to meeting Mallowan, Christie had not had any extensive brushes with archaeology, but once the two married they made sure to only go to sites where they could work together.

"Many years ago, when I was once saying sadly to Max it was a pity I couldn't have taken up archaeology when I was a girl, so as to be more knowledgeable on the subject, he said, 'Don't you realize that at this moment you know more about prehistoric pottery than any woman in England?"

-Christie wishing for an earlier exposure to Archaeology, a passage from An Autobiography (1984), p. 546^[43]

While accompanying Mallowan on countless archaeological trips (spending up to 3–4 months at a time in Syria and Iraq at excavation sites at Ur, Ninevah, Tell Arpachiyah, Chagar Bazar, Tell Brak, and Nimrud), Christie not only wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed work to the archaeological sites, more specifically to the archaeological restoration and labeling of ancient exhibits which includes tasks such as cleaning and conserving delicate ivory pieces, reconstructing pottery, developing photos from early excavations which later led to taking photographs of the site and its findings, and taking field notes.^[44]

As to not influence the funding of the archaeological excavations, Christie would always pay for her own board and lodging and her travel expenses, and she also supported the excavations as an anonymous sponsor.^[45]

Archaeological influences found in her writing[link]

Many of the settings for Agatha Christie’s books were directly inspired by the many archaeological field seasons spent in the Middle East on the sites managed by her second husband Max Mallowan. Her time spent at the many locations featured in her books is very apparent by the extreme detail in which she describes them. One such site featured in her books is the temple site of Abu Simbel in her book Death on the Nile, as well as the great detail in which she describes life at the dig site in her book Murder in Mesopotamia.

Characters

Of the characters in her books, Christie has often showcased the archaeologist and experts in Middle Eastern cultures and artifacts. Most notably are the characters of Dr. Eric Leidner in Murder in Mesopotamia, Signor Richetti in Death on the Nile, and many minor characters in They Came to Baghdad were archaeologists.

More indirectly, Christie’s famous character of Hercule Poirot can be compared to an archaeologist in his detailed scrutiny of all facts both large and small. Cornelius Holtorf, an academic archaeologist, describes an archaeologist as a detective as one of the key themes of archaeology in popular culture.^[46] He describes an archaeologist as a professional detective of the past who has the ability to reveal secrets for the greater of society. Holtorf’s description of the archaeologist as a detective is very similar to Christie’s Poirot who is hugely observant and is very careful to look at the small details as they often impart the most information. Many of Christie’s detective characters show some archaeological traits through their careful attention to clues and artifacts alike. Miss Marple, another of Christie’s most famous characters, shares these characteristics of careful deduction though the attention paid to the small clues.

Spiritual and Religious

Christie’s life within the archaeological world not only shaped her settings and characters for her books but also in the issues she highlights. One of the stronger influences is her love of the mystical and mysterious. Many of Christie’s books and short stories both set in the Middle East and back in England have a decidedly otherworldly influence in which religious sects, sacrifices, ceremony, and seances play a part. Such stories include “The Hound of Death” and “the Idol House of Astarte". This theme was greater strengthened by Christie’s time spent in the Middle East where she was consistently surrounded by the religious temples and spiritual history of the towns and cities they were excavating in Mallowan’s archaeological work.

Travel as Adventure

During Christie and Mallowan's time in the Middle East, along with their time spent among the many tombs, temples, and museums, there was also a large amount of time spent traveling to and from Mallowan's sites. The travelling involved in the archaeology had a large influence on Christie's writing, which is often reflected as some type of transportation playing a part in her murderer’s schemes. The large amount of travel done by Christie and Mallowan has not only made for a great writing theme, as shown in her famous novel: The Murder on the Orient Express, but also tied into the idea of archaeology as an adventure that has become so important in today’s popular culture as described by Cornelius Holtorf in his book Archaeology is a Brand.^[47]

Popular novels with heavy archaeological influences[link]

Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)

Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia is the most archaeologically influenced of all her novels as it is set in the Middle East at an archaeological dig site and associated expedition house. The Main characters included an archaeologist, Dr. Eric Leidner, as well as his wife, multiple specialists, assistants and the men working the site. The novel is most noted for its careful description of the dig site and house, which showed the author had spent much of her own time in very similar situations herself. The characters in this book in particular are also based on archaeologists Christie knew from her personnel experiences on excavations sites.

Appointment with Death (1938)

Appointment with Death is set in Jerusalem and its surrounding area. The death itself occurs in at an old cave site and offers some very descriptive details of sites which Christie herself would have visited in order to write the book.

Death on the Nile (1937)

Death on the Nile takes place on a tour boat on the Nile. Many archaeological sites are visited along the way and one of the main characters is an archaeologist, Signor Richetti.

They Came to Baghdad (1951)

They Came to Baghdad was inspired by Christie's own trips to Baghdad with Mallowan, and involves an archaeologist as the heroine's love interest.

Miscellaneous[link]

From 8 November 2001 - 24 March 2002, The British Museum had an exhibit named “Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia”, which presented a fascinating look at the secret life of Agatha Christie and the influences of archaeology in her life and works.^[48] In 1971 Agatha Christie was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.^[49] She and her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan, were one of the rare married couples to be titled, each in their own right.

Portrayals[link]

Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and television.

Several biographical programs have been made, such as the 2004 BBC television programme entitled Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures, in which she is portrayed by Olivia Williams, Anna Massey, and Bonnie Wright.

Christie has also been portrayed fictionally. Some of these have explored and offered accounts of Christie's disappearance in 1926, including the 1979 film Agatha (with Vanessa Redgrave, where she sneaks away to plan revenge against her husband) and the Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (with Fenella Woolgar, her disappearance being the result of her suffering a temporary breakdown due to a brief psychic link being formed between her and an alien). Others, such as 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak Budapesten (not to be confused with the 1986 comedy by the same name) create their own scenarios involving Christie's criminal skill.^[50] In the 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book, Christie herself (Dame Peggy Ashcroft) murdered one of her fictional-turned-real characters, Poirot. The heroine of Liar-Soft's 2008 visual novel Shikkoku no Sharnoth: What a Beautiful Tomorrow, Mary Clarissa Christie, is based on the real-life Christie. Christie features as a character in Gaylord Larsen's Dorothy and Agatha and The London Blitz Murders' by Max Allan Collins.^[51][52]

Christie has also been parodied on screen, such as in the film Murder by Indecision, which featured the character "Agatha Crispy".

Works by other authors based on Christie's works[link]

Plays adapted into novels[link]

Charles Osborne novelised three of Christie's plays:

• 1998 Black Coffee (featuring Hercule Poirot, based on the 1930 play 'Black Coffee')
• 1999 The Unexpected Guest (based on the 1958 play The Unexpected Guest)
• 2000 Spider's Web (based on the 1954 play Spider's Web)

These three novels are now available in the collection Murder In Three Stages.

Works adapted into plays[link]

• 1928 Alibi (dramatised by Michael Morton from the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
• 1932 Roads of Memory (dramatised by W E Fuller; it is unclear what work this "sophisticated mystery" was based on)
• 1936 Love from a Stranger (dramatised by Frank Vosper from the short story Philomel Cottage)
• 1939 Tea for Three (dramatised by Margery Vosper from the short story Accident)
• 1940 Peril at End House (dramatised by Arnold Ridley)
• 1949 Murder at the Vicarage (dramatised by Moie Charles and Barbara Toy)
• 1956 Towards Zero (dramatised by Gerald Verner)
• 1977 A Murder is Announced (dramatised by Leslie Darbon)
• 1981 Cards on the Table (dramatised by Leslie Darbon)
• 1993 Murder Is Easy (dramatised by Clive Exton)
• 2005 And Then There Were None (dramatised by Kevin Elyot from the novel Ten Little Niggers)

Film adaptations[link]

Television adaptations[link]

• 1937 Spider's Web (Based on the stage play of the same name)
• 1938 Love from a Stranger (Based on the stage play of the same name from the short story Philomel Cottage)
• 1947 Love from a Stranger
• 1949 Ten Little Indians
• 1959 Ten Little Indians
• 1970 The Murder at the Vicarage
• 1980 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
• 1982 Spider's Web
• 1982 The Seven Dials Mystery
• 1982 The Agatha Christie Hour
• 1982 Murder Is Easy
• 1982 The Witness for the Prosecution
• 1983 The Secret Adversary
• 1983 Partners in Crime
• 1983 A Caribbean Mystery
• 1983 Sparkling Cyanide
• 1984 The Body in the Library
• 1985 Murder with Mirrors
• 1985 The Moving Finger
• 1985 A Murder is Announced
• 1985 A Pocket Full of Rye
• 1985 Thirteen at Dinner
• 1986 Dead Man's Folly
• 1986 Murder in Three Acts
• 1986 The Murder at the Vicarage
• 1987 Sleeping Murder
• 1987 At Bertram's Hotel
• 1987 Nemesis
• 1987 4.50 from Paddington
• 1989 The Man in the Brown Suit
• 1989 A Caribbean Mystery
• 1991 They Do It with Mirrors
• 1992 The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
• 1997 The Pale Horse
• 2001 Murder on the Orient Express
• 2003 Sparkling Cyanide
• 2004 The Body in the Library
• 2004 The Murder at the Vicarage
• 2004 4.50 from Paddington
• 2005 A Murder is Announced
• 2005 Sleeping Murder
• 2006 The Moving Finger
• 2006 By the Pricking of My Thumbs
• 2006 The Sittaford Mystery
• 2007 Hercule Poirot's Christmas (A French film adaptation)
• 2007 Towards Zero
• 2007 Nemesis
• 2007 At Bertram's Hotel
• 2007 Ordeal by Innocence
• 2009 A Pocket Full of Rye
• 2009 Murder Is Easy
• 2009 They Do It with Mirrors
• 2009 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
• 2010 The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
• 2010 The Secret of Chimneys
• 2010 The Blue Geranium
• 2010 The Pale Horse

[edit] Agatha Christie's Poirot television series

Episodes of the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot include:

• 1990 Peril at End House
• 1990 The Mysterious Affair at Styles
• 1992 The ABC Murders
• 1992 Death in the Clouds
• 1992 One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
• 1994 Hercule Poirot's Christmas
• 1995 Murder on the Links
• 1995 Hickory Dickory Dock
• 1996 Dumb Witness
• 2000 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
• 2000 Lord Edgware Dies
• 2001 Evil Under the Sun
• 2001 Murder in Mesopotamia
• 2004 Five Little Pigs
• 2004 Death on the Nile
• 2004 Sad Cypress
• 2004 The Hollow
• 2005 The Mystery of the Blue Train
• 2005 Cards on the Table
• 2005 After the Funeral
• 2006 Taken at the Flood
• 2008 Mrs. McGinty's Dead
• 2008 Cat Among the Pigeons
• 2008 Third Girl
• 2008 Appointment with Death
• 2009 The Clocks
• 2009 Three Act Tragedy
• 2010 Hallowe'en Party
• 2010 Murder on the Orient Express

Graphic novels[link]

Euro Comics India began issuing a series of graphic novel adaptations of Christie's work in 2007.

• 2007 The Murder on the Links Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Marc Piskic
• 2007 Murder on the Orient Express Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Solidor (Jean-François Miniac).
• 2007 Death on the Nile Adapted by Francois Riviere, Illustrated by Solidor (Jean-François Miniac)
• 2007 The Secret of Chimneys Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Laurence Suhner
• 2007 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Adapted and illustrated by Bruno Lachard
• 2007 The Mystery of the Blue Train Adapted and illustrated by Marc Piskic
• 2007 The Man in the Brown Suit Adapted and illustrated by Alain Paillou
• 2007 The Big Four Adapted by Hichot and illustrated by Bairi
• 2007 The Secret Adversary Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq
• 2007 The Murder at the Vicarage Adapted and illustrated by "Norma"
• 2007 Murder in Mesopotamia Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Chandre
• 2007 And Then There Were None Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq
• 2007 Endless Night Adapted by Francois Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq
• 2008 Ordeal by Innocence Adapted and illustrated by Chandre
• 2008 Hallowe'en Party Adapted and illustrated by Chandre

HarperCollins independently began issuing this series also in 2007.

In addition to the titles issued the following titles are also planned for release:

• 2008 Peril at End House Adapted by Thierry Jollet and illustrated by Didier Quella-Guyot
• 2009 Dumb Witness Adapted and illustrated by "Marek"

Video games[link]

• 1988 The Scoop (published by Spinnaker Software and Telarium) (PC)
• 2005 Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (PC and Wii).
• 2006 Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express (PC)
• 2007 Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile (I-Spy" hidden-object game) (PC)
• 2007 Agatha Christie: Evil Under the Sun (PC and Wii)
• 2008 Agatha Christie: Peril at End House (I-Spy" hidden-object game)
• 2009 Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders (DS)
• 2009 Agatha Christie: Dead Man's Folly (I-Spy" hidden-object game)(PC)
• 2010 Agatha Christie 4:50 from Paddington (I-Spy" hidden-object game)(PC)

Animation[link]

In 2004 the Japanese broadcasting company Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai turned Poirot and Marple into animated characters in the anime series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, introducing Mabel West (daughter of Miss Marple's mystery-writer nephew Raymond West, a canonical Christie character) and her duck Oliver as new characters.

Unpublished material[link]

• Personal Call (supernatural radio play, featuring Inspector Narracott who also appeared in The Sittaford Mystery; a recording is in the British Library Sound Archive)
• The Woman and the Kenite (horror: an Italian translation, allegedly transcribed from an Italian magazine of the 1920s, is available on the internet: La moglie del Kenita^{[dead link]}).
• Butter In a Lordly Dish (horror/detective radio play, adapted from The Woman and the Kenite)
• Being So Very Wilful (romantic)
• Snow Upon the Desert (romantic novel)^[53]
• Stronger than Death (supernatural)^[54]
• The Green Gate (supernatural)^[54]
• The Greenshore Folly (novella featuring Hercule Poirot; the basis for Dead Man's Folly)^[55]
• The War Bride (supernatural)
• Eugenia and Eugenics (stage play)^[54]
• Witchhazel (supernatural short story)^[54]
• Someone at the Window (play adapted from short story The Dead Harlequin)^[54]
• Miss Perry (stage play)

See also[link]

Novels portal

• Tropes in Agatha Christie's novels
• Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures (Her life story in a 2004 BBC drama)
• Abney Hall (home to her brother-in-law; several books use Abney as their setting)
• Greenway Estate (Christie's former home in Devon. The grounds are now in the possession of the National Trust and open to the public)
• Agatha Christie indult (a non-denominational request to which Christie was signatory seeking permission for the occasional use of the Tridentine (Latin) mass in England and Wales)

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

See Agatha Christie bibliography

• Christie, Agatha (1977). Agatha Christie: An Autobiography. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. ISBN 0-396-07516-9. 

• Agatha Christie Limited

• "Travel and Archaeology". Agatha Christie Limited. http://agathachristie.com/about-christie/travel-and-archeology/. Retrieved 29 February 2012. 
• "AGATHA CHRISTIE – THE EXPLORER AND ARCHAEOLOGIST". Agatha Christie Limited. http://agathachristie.com/cms-media/assets/PR_-_Agatha_Christie_-_the_Explorer.pdf. Retrieved 1 March 2012. 

• Dever, Norma. (2004) "They Also Dug! Archaeologist’s Wives and Their Stories." Near Eastern Archaeology. Boston: The American Schools of Oriental Research. Vol. 67,No. 3, pp. 162–173

• Holtorf, Cornelius. (2007) Archaeology is a Brand! The meaning of archaeology in contemporary popular culture. Oxford, England: Archaeopress.

• Lubelski, Amy (March/April 2002). "Museums: In the Field with Agatha Christie". Archaeology 55 (2). http://www.archaeology.org/0203/reviews/christie.html. Retrieved 28 February 2012. 

• Morgan, Janet P. (1984) Agatha Christie: a biography. London: Collins.

• Roaf, Michael and Robert Killick. (1987) "A Mysterious Affair of Styles: The Ninevite 5 Pottery of Northern Mesopotamia." Iraq. Vol.49, pp. 199–230

• Thomas, W.G. "Murder in Mesopotamia: Agatha Christie and Archaeology", http://www.gwthomas.org/murderinmeso.htm

• Trustees of the British Museum. (2012) The British Museum, http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/middle_east/agatha_christie__archaeology/pottery_palace_ware_jar.aspx

Further reading[link]

Articles[link]

• Knepper, Marty S. (Summer 2005). "The Curtain Falls : Agatha Christie's Last Novels". CLUES : A Journal of Detection 23 (4): 69 –84. DOI:10.3200/CLUS.23.4.69-84. 
• Mann, Jessica (20 September 2007). "Taking liberties with Agatha Christie (review of Laura Thompson's Agatha Christie: An English Mystery)". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3668017/Taking-liberties-with-Agatha-Christie.html. 
• Kerridge, Jake (11 October 2007). "The crimes of Agatha Christie (print edition of 6 October 2007: She made murder a parlour game) (review of Laura Thompson's Agatha Christie: An English Mystery)". London: The Daily Telegraph (Review). p. 24. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3668468/The-crimes-of-Agatha-Christie.html. 
• "Agatha Christie's holiday home opens to the public". The Daily Telegraph (London). 23 February 2009. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4785905/Agatha-Christies-holiday-home-opens-to-the-public.html. 

Books[link]

• Barnard, Robert (1980). A Talent to Deceive –An Appreciation of Agatha Christie. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-216190-7.  Reprinted as New York: Mysterious Press, 1987.
• Osborne, Charles (1982). The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie. London: Collins. 
• Thompson, Laura (2007). Agatha Christie : An English Mystery. London: Headline Review. ISBN 0-7553-1487-5. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Agatha Christie

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Agatha Christie

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Agatha Christie

• Official Agatha Christie site
• Agatha Christie at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by Agatha Christie at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Agatha Christie in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Works by Agatha Christie on Open Library at the Internet Archive
• Agatha Christie/Sir Max Mallowan's blue plaque at Cholsey
• Agatha Christie profile and articles at "The Guardian"
• Agatha Christie profile on PBS.ORG
• Agatha Christie's style and methods, the plot devices that she uses to trick the reader
• Agatha Christie's Profile on FamousAuthors.org