Christie’s secrets

Agatha Christie, who kept generations of readers in knots, kept 73 notebooks that were discovered recently. These have been written into a book by a fan-researcher and will be released next month, the same time as A VERY EXCITING Christie Week in Britain

It is 33 years since Agatha Christie died, but the Queen of Crime still has some twists and surprises in store.

Next month, the contents of 73 notebooks that she used to plan her murder mysteries will be revealed with the publication of Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by archivist John Curran. The notebooks came to light at the family home in Devon a few years ago after the death of Christie's daughter.

The book includes extracts from the notebooks, drafts, deleted scenes, unused ideas and, most exciting of all, two previously unpublished stories featuring her most popular creation, Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective. It is also a howdunnit to her whodunnits, with Curran offering insights into her writing methods and his own analysis.

The publication of the book by HarperCollins on September 3 comes shortly before Christie Week, a celebration of her work that coincides with her birthday on September 15. The festival started five years ago and grows bigger each year.

The howdunnits behind her whodunnits
About her enduring and universal popularity, Curran says: "I think her work appeals to the side of human nature that likes to tantalise itself with puzzles and conundrums as witness the enduring mass appeal of jigsaws, crosswords, word and number puzzles and Sudoku. The fact that she was so enormously prolific is also a factor.
Doubtless the ongoing TV interest helps but she has also successfully transferred to graphic novel and computer games. Her books have timeless appeal and now, of course, have a nostalgia value."

Curran is a big fan himself. He says: "I am a fan of crime fiction in general and detective fiction in particular.

She wrote the most impressive body of 'pure' detective fiction and devised more ways to fool the reader than any other writer. Quite simply, nobody else ever did it so well, so often and for so long."

During Christie Week there are events in London and Reading, and programmes on TV and radio, but the heart of the festival is in and around the author's hometown of Torquay in Devon. Up to 5,000 fans are expected to descend on the seaside resort to enjoy more than 40 events such as plays, open-air cinema screenings, talks, a murder mystery dinner, a costume tea dance, and a treasure hunt around the countryside especially for classic car owners. Visitors can also see locations that feature in some of her books, and walk the Agatha Christie Mile that takes in significant places in her life such as the hotel where she spent her honeymoon.

Lydia Stone, tourism officer with the English Riviera Tourist Board, says: "Every year the festival is gaining in popularity and the number of events has increased dramatically. Fans come from all over the world."

Stone agrees that nostalgia is a big factor in Christie's appeal. "The books are evocative of past eras such as the halcyon days of the 1920s," she says. "Then there are the settings, such as big country houses. It's a life gone by. The books are also full of colourful characters, and they have lots of red herrings so you are kept guessing right to the end. And they are quite easy to read. It isn't a slog. It's comfort reading."

Christie's holiday home opens to public
The biggest excitement so far this year was the opening to the public in February of Greenway, Christie's holiday home from 1938 to 1959, and subsequently the home of her daughter and son-in-law until their deaths in 2004 and 2005. The 300-acre estate, on the River Dart near Brixham in Devon, was given by the family to the National Trust in 2000, though until this year the public could visit only the grounds. Most of the contents are the generous gift of Mathew Prichard, Christie's grandson.

The house is so popular that there have been 47,000 visitors in 16 weeks. Arrival by "green" transport such as ferry, bus, bike or on foot rather than by car is recommended.

Christie called Greenway "the loveliest place in the world". When it took charge of the grounds, the National Trust stated that it intended to retain its "almost wayward character, its atmospheric beauty, and its timeless qualities. Care will be taken to nurture the garden and safeguard the excitement, the mystery and the wildness."

It took two years to re-create the house so that it portrays the spirit of a holiday home in its 1950s heyday.

Robyn Brown, National Trust Property Manager for Greenway, described it as "a family holiday home in which parties have congregated and celebrated a combined interest in gardens, a love of travel, literature and music as well as the beauty and inspiration of Devon and its surrounding coast and countryside".

Prichard commented: "What I wish most is that the people who visit it feel some of the magic and sense of place that I felt when my family and I spent so much time there in the 1950s and 1960s."

Visitors can view the many personal collections and mementos, including a display of First Editions.

Among the rooms on view is the library, which has a frieze painted on the walls by Lt Marshall Lee, an unofficial war artist of the US Coastguard, while the house was requisitioned by the Admiralty in the autumn of 1943.

There is the drawing room where Christie spent summer evenings reading a chapter from her latest novel to friends and family. And the dining room, where she would eat one of her favourite meals, hot lobster followed by blackberry ice cream. Her bedroom has a stunning view stretching down the River Dart.

If you're in UK in September...
See best-selling authors and die-hard fans Kate Mosse, Val McDermid and Jasper Fforde at the Southbank Centre in London on September 16 as they discuss Christie's work or hear biographer Laura Thompson at the Throckmorton Literary Festival in Warwickshire on September 20. (https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/ / https://www.coughtoncourt.co.uk/)

Visit the annual Agatha Christie Festival on the English Riviera. Visitors from all over the world flock to Torquay and neighbouring towns each year where over 40 events will be taking place including plays, open-air cinema screenings, tea-dances, lectures and murder mystery dinners. (https://www.englishriviera.co.uk/)

watch The Agatha Christie Theatre Company present Murder on Air at the Hexagon Theatre in Reading in the build up to Christie Week, as part of the Reading Festival of Crime Writing. From September 10 to 12. (https://www.kenwright.com/)

Take a boat up the River Dart to Greenway, the beautiful family holiday home of Agatha Christie, opened to the public for the first time this year by the National Trust. (www.nationaltrust.org.uk/greenway)

Read Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, by archivist, John Curran, published on September 3 by HarperCollins.

The notebooks were unearthed at Greenway, and reveal handwritten notes which for years had gone unnoticed.
The volume includes two previously unpublished Poirot stories.

Step back in time aboard the British Pullman carriages of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express for a journey of mystery and intrigue, on September 12. Actors in period costume are on board setting the scene of the Murder on the Orient-Express on this Brighton Murder Mystery.

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