Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month for September 2023
'Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.'
Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was'just'an ordinary housewife,when clearly she wasn't As Lucy Worsley says,'She was thrillingly,scintillatingly modern'. She went surfing in Hawaii,she loved fast cars,and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology,which helped her through devastating mental illness.
So why - despite all the evidence to the contrary - did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure
She was born in 1890 into a world which had its own rules about what women could and couldn't do. Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling writer. It's also the story of a person who,despite the obstacles of class and gender,became an astonishingly successful working woman.
With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen,Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was - truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
Publisher: Hodder & StoughtonISBN: 9781529303919Number of pages: 432Weight: 320 gDimensions: 196 x 128 x 30 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'One brilliant woman writing about another: an irresistible combination.'- Antonia Fraser
'This is a warm,intelligent book,which does justice ,both to Agatha Christie's character,and to her distinctive genius as a writer of plays and novels. Someone once said that the greatest character Agatha Christie ever invented was Agatha Christie herself. If that's true,she was waiting for the perfect biographer to bring her back to life,and she has found her in Dr Lucy Worsley.'- A.N. Wilson
'Lucy Worsley brings Agatha Christie back to life,revealing a strong,pioneering,highly intelligent woman whose detective novels rank among the best ever written. Worsley shows us Christie's faults and flaws in the context of her time; she evokes her houses,clothes and the central mystery of her life in spritely sentences with a sharp ear for dialogue. Reading Worsley is as enjoyable as reading Christie herself.'- Ruth Scurr
'Lucy Worsley's biography of Agatha Christie is as unputdownable as any of the novels by the Queen of Crime herself. Gripping,revealing,and ultimately extremely moving,Agatha Christie is a wonderful tribute to one of the best-loved writers of the 20th century.'- Amanda Foreman
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