|
|
devonbooks.co.uk |
|
Agatha Christie at the
Mitre & Cottage Bookshops
Agatha Christie (christened Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller), recently voted the best crime writer of the twentieth century, was born in Torquay in 1890. In 1938 she moved with her second husband to Greenway House, on the River Dart, where her family currently live. Although the house itself is private, the gardens are open for public viewing.
Torre Abbey Museum has a room dedicated to her life, known as the "Agatha Christie Memorial Room" which contains memorabilia associated with her. Torquay Museum boasts an extensive display of her family photographs, that detail her life from a young girl into adulthood.
Agatha Christie shunned publicity, rarely gave interviews, and once remarked "Once I've been dead ten years I'm sure nobody will ever have heard of me". Little did she know that now, almost thirty years after her death, the interest in her and her books is unabated. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language alone, and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays and 6 novels under the name of Mary Westmacott. Her work has been translated into more languages than Shakespeare's. It is on the school curriculum in Japan, and her success has been enhanced by many film and TV adaptations.
Torquay, Paignton and Brixham (now known as Torbay) feature in many of her novels, as does the surrounding area of South Devon:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles was written at her family home at Barton, Torquay. The house, Ashfield, now demolished, is featured in her last novel, Postern of Fate.
The murder in the title Why didn't they ask Evans is thought to have been situated at Watcombe, on the cliff edge below the golf course.
The Imperial Hotel (situated on Torquay's sea front) is identified as The Majestic Hotel in Sleeping Murder, Peril at End House and Body in the Library.
Kent's Cavern is identified as Hampsly Cavern in The Man in the Brown Suit.
The scene of the third murder in The ABC Murders is at Elberry Cove, near to Brixham.
Agatha Christie's home (Greenway), on the River Dart, is known as Alderburyin Five Little Pigs and Nasse House in Dead Man's Folly. The murder in Dead Man's Folly was set in Greenway Boathouse.
Torquay is used as the location of several novels, under a variety of names:
St. Loo (Peril at End House)
Loomouth (Three Act Tragedy)
Danemouth (The Body in the Library)
Cullenquay (Mrs. McGinty's Dead)