Understanding Agatha Christie

Tison PughAuthor

Explores seven startling paradoxes behind the bestselling novelist's lasting popularity


Agatha Christie stands as the bestselling novelist of all time and, in terms of total sales in all genres, places only behind the Christian Bible and Shakespeare. Since the publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920, Christie's fiction has withstood the envy of her peers and the snipes of critics, while garnering the admiration of countless readers.


From her puzzling persona (notably in her eleven-day disappearance in 1926) and status as "Queen of the Cozies" to her tragicomic themes and critiques of Englishness, Christie built a lasting literary legacy that perplexes and pleases her hordes of readers. In Understanding Agatha Christie, Tison Pugh takes a fresh look at the contemporary world's most popular author, investigating seven notable paradoxes behind her lasting success, thereby illuminating the literary innovations that have contributed to her uncannily timeless appeal.

Table of Contents

Metadata

  • container title
    Understanding Agatha Christie
  • isbn
    978-1-64336-442-1
  • publisher
    University of South Carolina Press
  • publisher place
    Columbia, SC
  • restrictions
    The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0. International (CC BY- NC- ND 4.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
  • rights

    © 2023 by University of South Carolina


    The inclusion of this book in the Open Carolina collection is made possible by the generous funding of the University of South Carolina Libraries.

  • rights holder
    University of South Carolina
  • series title
    Understanding Contemporary British Literature
  • doi
    https://doi.org/10.61162/9781643364421