Читать книгу The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie: A biographical companion to the works of Agatha Christie - Charles Osborne - Страница 7

‘Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?’ was the title of an article by the American critic and novelist Edmund Wilson,¹ who had no taste for crime fiction. It was a silly question, for millions cared.

W. H. Auden began an essay, ‘The Guilty Vicarage’,² with the words ‘For me, as for many others, the reading of detective stories is an addiction like tobacco or alcohol’, and went on to confess that ‘if I have any work to do, I must be careful not to get hold of a detective story for, once I begin one, I cannot work or sleep till I have finished it.’

The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie is a book for the likes of W. H. Auden, rather than for the likes of Edmund Wilson. It examines not only the crime novels but also everything else that Agatha Christie published, including the non-fiction, the stories for children, the poetry, the plays (both those written by her and those adapted from her novels by other hands), the films based on her works, and the six novels she produced under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott.

My qualifications for writing this book are slender: (i) I began reading Agatha Christie surreptitiously during a Latin lesson at school in 1943, and I have stopped, temporarily, only because I have read everything she wrote and, blessed with a highly selective memory, have actually read several of the murder mysteries more than once over the years; (ii) I played Dr Carelli in Agatha Christie’s Black Coffee during a summer season of repertory in Tunbridge Wells in 1955 (‘Nearer the Latin temperament was Charles Osborne as the slick Dr Carelli,’ said the local newspaper critic, after savaging the leading lady); (iii) I once met Dame Agatha at a party given by her publishers to celebrate the publication of Passenger to Frankfurt in 1970. Suddenly and uncharacteristically nervous at finding myself momentarily alone with the eighty-year-old author whom I had admired for so many years, I found myself offering her an engagement to take part in an Arts Council Writers’ Tour, and address audiences in the provinces. ‘Oh, I’m afraid I couldn’t do that,’ Dame Agatha replied immediately. ‘I wouldn’t be any good at it, and in any case, you see, the reason I began to write more than sixty years ago was in order to avoid having to talk to people.’

Let me assure potential readers of this book that they may proceed in perfect safety. Nowhere in these pages do I reveal the identity of any of Agatha Christie’s murderers.

Unless otherwise indicated, dates given after the titles of books are those of first publication. In the majority of cases only a few weeks separate American and British publication dates. Where a title was not published in both countries, this is made clear.

My thanks for help of various kinds are due to the following individuals and institutions: Jonathan Barker, Jacques Barzun, Agatha Christie Ltd, Allan Davis, Sebastian Faulks, Joseph Hansen, Jennifer Insull, Mathew Prichard, Sir Peter Saunders, Brian Stone, Julian Symons, Kenneth Thomson, John Wells, Philip Ziegler; Arts Council Poetry Library, Brighton Area Library, British Library, British Theatre Institute Library, William Collins Sons & Co., Crime Writers’ Association, Daily Telegraph, Library of Congress, London Library. I am especially grateful to my editor, Elizabeth Blair.

C.O.