LITMIR.BIZ

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      Biographers, however, do not look only at papers. Agatha’s houses and gardens, furniture and possessions have been equally revealing; her family have given me generous access to all these, particularly to Greenway, her house in Devon. Here, with the books she read as a child still in the library, her china in the cupboards and the trees she planted in the garden, I have written most of this book. Mr and Mrs Hicks have been welcoming and hospitable; their greatest kindness has been to read every word of this biography, several times, to point out factual errors, chase references, and talk about Agatha Christie, without once insisting on a view of her character or work that might differ from my own. No biographer could ask for more and I would like to thank them here.

      At Greenway, too, I first met many of Agatha’s family and friends. There, and later at their own houses, they told me more about her. I am particularly grateful to her grandson, Mathew Prichard, his wife, Angela, and their children; to Mr and Mrs Archibald Christie, the son and daughter-in-law of Agatha’s first husband, Archie, and his wife Nancy; and to Mrs Cecil Mallowan, Mr and Mrs John Mallowan and Mr and Mrs Peter Mallowan, the family of Agatha’s second husband, Max. I would also like to thank Lady Mallowan, who, as Miss Barbara Parker, first knew Agatha and Max on their archaeological expeditions to Iraq and who later married Max. She has not only described them both to me but has also explained a great deal about their work at Nimrud. Agatha’s family have all spoken freely and thought carefully about my many questions; they have made letters, papers and possessions available without hesitation and smoothed my path towards other witnesses.

      Apart from the odd name-dropper (and there are only a couple), people who knew Agatha have hitherto refrained from discussing her with strangers. Old friends kept their stories to themselves, professional colleagues and advisers confined their published remarks to diverting anecdotes about her books and plays, and, by and large, those who worked for her, however briefly or casually, maintained a silence as deep as that of any doctor, priest or lawyer. They knew her as a person, not as a phenomenon; they saw how she shrank from publicity and sympathised. Only the password ‘authorised biographer’ unlocked those doors. Reassured, Agatha’s friends and acquaintances gave me their time, their recollections and their correspondence. Others, who did not know Agatha Christie but were interested in her work and character, guided me to new sources and gave me expert advice. My portrait of Agatha Christie is composed of these memories and reflections and I would like to thank the following people for their part in making it: Mrs Edward Allen; Jeffrey Andrews; Mr and Mrs Tom Ayling; Larry Bachmann; Dr and Mrs Richard Barnett; Mrs J. Barrett; William W. Baxter; the Hon. Mrs Guy Beauchamp; Guilford Bell; Sir Isaiah Berlin; Mrs Connie Bessie; Miss Kathleen Bird; Mrs Anthony Boosey; the late Sir James Bowker; Lady Bowker; Miss Christianna Brand; Richard Buckmaster; Nigel Calder; Miss Elizabeth Callow; Lady Campbell-Orde; Lady Camoys; Sir Simon and Lady Cassels; Mrs Rose Coles; Lady Collins; Edmund Cork; Miss Jill Cork; Miss Pat Cork; Denis Corkery; Miss Ann Disney; Jonathan Dodd; Edward Dodd; Sergeant Durrant of the Surrey Constabulary; Eiddon Edwards; Michael Evelyn; Anthony Fleming; Mr and Mrs Peter Fleming; Richard Fletcher; Mr and Mrs G. Gardner; Sir Julian Gascoigne; Mrs Raleigh Gilbert; Hugh Goodson; Mrs D. Gould; Mr and Mrs Basil Gray; Miss Deborah Greenep; Mr and Mrs Donald Griggs; Caroline Grocholski; Mrs John Gueritz; Professor and Mrs Oliver Gurney; Mr and Mrs C. Hackforth-Jones; Dr Donald Harden; Sir Peter and Lady Hayman; Sir William and Lady Hayter; the late Sir John Hedges; Lady Hedges; Mrs Diana Helbaek; the late Mrs Arthur Hicks; Brigadier and Mrs William Hine-Haycock; Mrs Daphne Honeybone; Mrs Irene Hunter; Mr and Mrs Peter Hulin; Sir Geoffrey Jackson; Mrs Frank James; Dennis Joss; Mr Rodney Kannreuther and the late Mrs Kannreuther; Mr and Mrs Austen Kark; Mr and Mrs Arthur Kellas; James Kelly; Denis Kelynack; Mr and Mrs Richard Kindersley; Sir Laurence and Lady Kirwan; Frank Lavin; Richard Ledbetter; Mr and Mrs Maurice Lush; the late Mrs Ernest Mackintosh; Harvey McGregor Q.C.; Mr and Mrs Richard Mallock; Mrs M. Marcus; Commander Marten and the Hon Mrs George Marten; Mr and Mrs A.R. Maxwell-Hyslop; the Hon Mrs John Mildmay-White; Dr and Mrs Philip Mitchelmore; Charles Monteith; John Murphy; Professor and Mrs David Oates; Miss Jennifer Oates; Miss Dorothy Olding; James Paterson; S. Phelps Platt Jr; Sir John Pope-Hennessy; Professor and Mrs Nicholas Postgate; Briton Potts; Mr and Mrs J.B. Priestley; Dr and Mrs Julian Reade; Sir John and Lady Richmond; Mrs Betty Rivoli; Miss Patricia Robertson; Sergeant Geoffrey Rose of the Thames Valley Police; Mrs Adelaide Ross; Raymond Ross; Lady le Rougetel; Sir Steven Runciman; Mrs Herta Ryder; Sir Peter Saunders; Mrs Reginald Schofield; Professor and Mrs Seton Lloyd; Mr and Mrs Guy Severn; Madame de Soissons; Mr and Mrs J.C. Springford; Dr Anthony Storr; Julian Symons; Miss Geraldine Talbot; Mrs M. Thompson; Miss Barbara Toy; Lord and Lady Trevelyan; Dr Alan Tyson; John Vaughan; Algernon Whitburn; the late Mr Albert Whiteley; Stephen Whitwell; Mr and Mrs Michael Wildy; Professor Donald Wiseman; Mr and Mrs John Wollen; Nigel Wollen; Sir Denis and Lady Wright; and Rolando Bertotti, the head waiter at Boodle’s. There are others, too, whom I would like to thank but their names are obscured by a blot where a raindrop has fallen on my pages. I will thank them properly when we next meet and in the meantime they have my apologies.

      I am especially grateful to those who have allowed me to quote from letters to or from Agatha Christie and from family papers. Mrs Anthony Hicks, Mr and Mrs Mathew Prichard, John Mallowan and Peter Mallowan have been immensely helpful and I am also indebted to Edmund Cork and his family. I would also like to thank: Anthony Fleming, for permitting me to quote from the letters of his mother, Miss Dorothy L. Sayers; Mrs Frankfort, for an extract from a letter from her father, Professor Stephen Glanville; Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, whose reports to Collins are quoted here; Lady Kirwan, for quotations from letters from Agatha and Max; Mrs Anne McMurphy, formerly Miss Marple, whose letter from Agatha revealed the origins of that heroine’s name; James Paterson, for extracts from his correspondence about the Churston window; Miss Dorothy Olding, whose exchanges with Edmund Cork I have plundered; Sir Peter Saunders, for quotations from letters and telegrams about plays; Professor Harry Smith, for allowing me to quote from a letter from his father, Professor Sidney Smith; and Miss Barbara Toy, whose correspondence I have cited in writing about Murder at the Vicarage.

      I also wish to thank the directors of Agatha Christie Ltd, and the board of Booker McConnell Ltd, for allowing me to use their records; the BBC Written Archives Centre, and Mrs J. Kavanagh, Neil Somerville and Jeff Walden, for permission to quote from their records; the British Red Cross, and the archivist, Miss Margaret Wade, for details of Agatha Christie’s service in the First World War; the directors of William Collins Ltd, for opening their files and allowing me to quote from them; Harrods Press Office, for their efforts to trace a letter Agatha Christie sent them in 1926; the Harrogate Advertiser and Herald, whose archive gave an illuminating picture of the town and its visitors in the ‘twenties; the Home Office Library and the Departmental Records Officer, for their invaluable help in my search through the accounts of Agatha’s disappearance; Hughes Massie Ltd, for permission to examine the records of Agatha’s dealings with her agent; the Imperial War Museum for giving me access to the tape-recording Agatha made for their oral archive; the Trustees of the Allen Lane Foundation, and Dr Michael Rhodes, the archivist, for allowing me to cite extracts from Agatha’s correspondence with The Bodley Head; the Trustees of the Mountbatten Foundation, for enabling me to quote from Earl Mountbatten’s correspondence with Agatha about The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; the trustees of the Harold Ober estate, who made the correspondence of Agatha’s American agent available to me, the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Firestone Library at Princeton University, which houses it, and Miss Jane Snedeker, who guided me to it; the Surrey Record Office, and Dr Robinson, for their help in disentangling the events of 1926; and the University of Manchester Library, and Miss J. Sen, for supplying details of the careers of the doctors who attended Agatha in 1926.

      There are others who, out of enthusiasm, curiosity or both, contributed to this book by producing new ideas and surprising references. I particularly wish to thank: Dr Marilyn Butler; Professor John Carey; Christopher Campbell; Stephen Hearst; Leofranc Holford-Strevens; Miss Frances Irwin; Edward Jospé; Mrs Cécil Jospé; Gordon Lee; Douglas Matthews; Mrs Alexandra Nicol; Miss Olivia Stewart; and Miss Anne Willis. I am equally grateful to those who interpreted, typed, arranged and copied my manuscript as I moved from one house, hotel, office and country to the next: Mrs Rigby Allen; Mrs Berry; Miss Michelle Cooper; Vincent Jones; Mrs Daisy Sasso; Mrs Jean Smith; and, as choreographers, Mrs Sheila George and Ray Walters. I would also like to thank Mr Bobby Burns and the Hon. Mrs Burns for their

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