10 Unexpected facts about Agatha Christie that will surprise you (11 photos)

This amazing woman, in between, concocted mysteries that continue to captivate passionate minds even half a century after the queen of detective fiction passed away. And they will continue to do so for generations to come.





But Agatha Christie kept many secrets. Did you know she surfed, hid from the police, and that her husband was suspected of murder? These ten unexpected facts will reveal a completely new side of Agatha Christie.

1 Let's go surfing!



She was a surfing pioneer. Thanks to her marriage to Archibald Christie and his work promoting the British Empire Exhibition, the couple traveled extensively. Recent research has shown that Archie and Agatha may have been among the first Europeans to master stand-up surfing. Agatha honed her bodyboarding skills in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, and in Hawaii, she and Archie learned to ride waves standing on a board.

2. My Nastiness





She had a weakness for poisons. At the beginning of World War I, Christie worked with the ambulance corps, and later in the local hospital pharmacy, where she passed the Apothecaries' Society exam and acquired a deep interest and knowledge of toxicology.

3. The Killer – a Colonel?



Agatha with her first husband, Archibald Christie

Her husband was suspected of her murder. The year 1926 brought Christie both triumph and grief. She became famous after the publication of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," but that same year she lost her mother, and her husband confessed to being in love with his golf partner, Nancy Neele. The result was a mysterious 11-day disappearance. Suffering from amnesia, Christie checked into a Harrogate hotel under the name Teresa Neele. Police and bloodhounds searched intensively for her. Colonel Christie was suspected of his wife's murder. Only when a member of the hotel orchestra recognized her and reported her was Agatha declared found and alive. Memories of that period never returned to her. Or perhaps she simply didn't confess. The writer divorced Archie Christie in 1928. Michael Apted's 1979 film "Agatha," starring Vanessa Redgrave and Dustin Hoffman, offers a fictionalized version of those eleven days.

4. Personal Best



She is the best-selling author in history. "Ten Little Indians" is the best-selling detective novel of all time, selling over 100 million copies. With combined worldwide sales of her books amounting to between two and four billion, Christie is one of the most published authors in the world, second only to William Shakespeare.

5. Best Friends



She adored dogs. Christie always had dogs, usually terriers. Her first was named George Washington, but her favorite was a shorthaired terrier named Peter, who became a character in the book – a dog named Bob in the novel "Silent Witness." The book is dedicated to him: "To dear Peter, most faithful friend and dear companion, a dog worth a thousand."

6. Photographs and Artifacts



Max and Agatha

She was passionate about photography. In September 1930, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan for the second time and became an artifact photographer at his excavations in Syria and Iraq. The phrase "the older an archaeologist's wife, the more interesting she is to him" is often attributed to her, but she never actually said it. These expeditions greatly influenced her work, including her novels "Death on the Nile," "Murder in Mesopotamia," and "Murder on the Orient Express."

7. Challenge Accepted



She accepted the challenge with courage and dignity. She began writing detective stories because of an argument with her sister, Madge, who insisted Agatha wouldn't succeed. The prototype for the main character eluded her for a long time, until she saw a strange little man among Belgian refugees in Torquay. Thus, Hercule Poirot was born. The novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," was rejected six times before it was published in 1920.

8. That Insufferable Poirot



She killed Poirot and then hid the manuscript in a safe. By the late 1930s, Christie had begun to find Poirot "insufferable," and in 1940, she "killed" him in the novel Curtain. Convinced by her family, friends, and publisher not to publish the story, she put the manuscript in a safe and continued writing about the character until 1975, when the novel was finally published. Hercule Poirot received an obituary in the New York Times.

9. Modesty is the best adornment



She was very modest. According to her family, Christie initially declined the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and only accepted it after Max was knighted for his services to archaeology.

10. Lack of a high school diploma is no obstacle to genius



Agatha as a child with her dolls, Phoebe and Rosalind, circa 1898

She had no formal education. Although her brother and sister were sent to boarding schools and she to boarding schools in France, Agatha taught herself to read at age five and was educated in her father's library. What can be called an unusual starting point for such a brilliant career.