An Autobiography

Over the three decades since her death on 12 January 1976, many of Agatha Christie’s readers and reviewers have maintained that her most compelling book is probably still her least well-known. Her candid Autobiography, written mainly in the 1960s, modestly ignores the fact that Agatha had become the best-selling novelist in history and concentrates on her fascinating private life. From early childhood at the end of the 19th century, through two marriages and two World Wars, and her experiences both as a writer and on archaeological expeditions with her second husband, Max Mallowan, Agatha shares the details of her varied and sometimes complex life with real passion and openness.

Then, in 2008, Agatha Christie’s grandson made a remarkable discovery. While clearing out her old house in preparation for its opening to the public, Greenway in Devon, a box of old tape reels was found to contain the recordings of Agatha dictating her Autobiography for her typist. These remarkable recordings are not only an amazingly rare example of Agatha’s voice, but they also partly explain the engaging nature of her Autobiography - for they reveal the normally reclusive Agatha telling her own story in a lively, spontaneous and often conspiratorial way, whose passion in talking about her life is captured in the printed Autobiography.