Displays

Vervel, Marc
Clues (Bowling Green, Ohio), 2022-10, Vol.40 (2), p.39-48

The short story collection The Mysterious Mr. Quin has a special place in Agatha Christie s work. In these stories where rational investigation opens up to the supernatural, Christie theorizes what is at stake in the desire to read and proposes an expanded conception of the detective story.

Aldridge, Mark
Historical journal of film, radio, and television, 2023-04, Vol.43 (2), p.400-418

In May 1962 Agatha Christie completed a rough draft of a screenplay that adapted Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House. The intention was that the film would be produced by MGM, which at the time was adapting Christie's own works for the screen. This article looks at the surviving material related to the unrealised project and considers what it tells us about Agatha Christie and film adaptations.

Gulddal, Jesper
Textual practice, 2020-11, Vol.34 (11), p.1803-1821


Appointment with Death (1938) poses a challenge to the longstanding critical practice of highlighting Agatha Christie's lack of literary sophistication: her 'workmanlike' style, stereotypical settings, two-dimensional characters and ludic conception of the plot as a game that the author plays with the reader.

Kinnell, Herbert G
BMJ, 2010-12, Vol.341 (7786), p.1324-1325

This article offers an in-depth exploration of the roles and representations of medical professionals in Agatha Christie's detective fiction. Drawing on Christie's own background in pharmacology, Kinnell examines how doctors are intricately woven into her narratives, often serving as key players in the unraveling of mysteries. The article delves into the ethical dilemmas, medical knowledge, and societal perceptions of doctors as portrayed in her works, highlighting how they reflect broader cultural attitudes of the time.

Prior, Christopher
Cultural and social history, 2018-03, Vol.15 (2), p.197-213

Recent scholarly accounts of early post-war society have emphasised the importance of positive and self-congratulatory narratives of decolonisation - whereby the end of empire was the inevitable result of a pro-active British beneficence - or have suggested that society was shielded from a sense of imperial decline. Such accounts are complicated by Agatha Christie's immensely popular crime novels, which constructed a narrative of British decline rooted in a sense of departure from pre-war ideals of imperial masculinity, but whose Anglocentrism nevertheless offered up the potential for imperial renewal pending a 'rediscovery' of such characteristics.

Voždová, Marie
Polish journal of English studies, 2023-01, Vol.9 (2), p.77-92

In detective fiction written by Agatha Christie, the elderly characters are portrayed as being closely tied to the truth and consequently hold a crucial position in the narrative. As depicted in works centred on Miss Marple, old age represents a stage where one reaches the ability to understand human nature. The experience of the past enables the characters to recognize recurring patterns in human behaviour and use them in the search for the truth.

Najar, Esmaeil
Fatemeh Salehi Vaziri
Journal of language horizons, 2021-01, Vol.5 (1), p.167-184


In this article, we explore the concept of criminal psychology and will explicate some of its major tenets in characterization of Hercule Poirot. Using an interdisciplinary approach, by close reading and drawing from crime and psychological theories (especially Behaviorism), we investigate the criminal profiling techniques in Agatha Christie’s detective novels.

Plain, Gill
Literature and history, 2020-11, Vol.29 (2), p.179-199


The ‘golden age’ of clue-puzzle detective fiction is usually considered to end in 1939 with the outbreak of the Second World War. Yet Agatha Christie, the most high-profile and successful exponent of the form, continued to produce bestselling novels until her death in 1976. This essay examines three novels from the immediate postwar period to consider how she adapted her writing to negotiate a changing world and evolving fashions in genre fiction.