We have devoted previous entries to the queen of the roman noir, writer Agatha Christie, who I profoundly admire since she provided many hours of entertainment in my younger years and who died on this day in 1976. The bestselling writer hoarded hundreds of letters from her readers which were published for the first time last year (2015) to mark the 125th anniversary of her birth.
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| Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Agatha_Christie_plaque_-Torre_Abbey_portret.jpg |
A summary of these letters was included in this Guardian article, which I am partially including below:
[The letters] include a note from the author PG Wodehouse and a Polish woman in London, who told how one of Christie’s novels helped her to survive a wartime labour camp in Germany. The woman exchanged a piece of candle for a Polish translation of Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit.
“I read and reread (it) so often that I almost knew it by heart,” she wrote. “The first few pages were missing so I didn’t know the title or the author but for seven months it was my only link with a normal world.
“I know your writings have given pleasure and amusement to millions of people all over the world but never can one of your books have meant more to anyone than that tattered Polish translation did to me.”
Christie, who penned 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, also treasured a 1958 letter from a 14-year-old boy in Bristol who started a book club at his school so he could raise funds to buy her work.
“I have bought 28 books by you and this is how I have managed it,” he wrote. “I charge the boys 3d per book to read at school, and 6d if they wished to take them home.
“With the money I obtained... I bought more ‘AC’ books... Now my scheme is bringing in so much money, I can afford to buy one of your books a week.
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