Agatha Christie and the 20th Century Woman

Examining the works of Agatha Christie as she edited, revised and adapted them over the course of her career, this book undertakes a cross-examination of Christie’s writing to gauge her response to the evolving place of women in the world around her. With society’s laws concerning women and their legal status in dramatic flux, Christie experienced a transformation of every day structures as both an authorial witness and as a women affected by revolutionary shifts. Through the lens of feminist and adaptation studies as well as genetic criticism, Mary Anna Evans traces Christie’s shifting views across changes she made to her writing, putting her published words into conversation with unpublished notes, drafts, and correspondence held in public and private archives. Also drawing upon contextualisation from historical documents, Agatha Christie, Witness to the Evolution provides new insights into the work of this juggernaut of crime fiction, revealing her long-term interest in failures of the justice system and female vengeance. Covering well-known works such as Murder on the Orient Express, Witness for the Prosecution, And Then There Were None, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side and little-discussed texts including “Magnolia Blossom”, “The Water Bus”, “Philomel Cottage”, “The Wife of Kenite” and “Swan Song”, the book forms ‘genetic dossiers’ of Christie’s writing and how they evolved. Featuring examination of Christie’s note-book pages and unpublished and performed dramatic adaptations of works including The Stranger and Hostile Witness, Agatha Christie, Witness to the Evolution is a cross-disciplinary, forensic deep-dive into her writing that is as insightful as it is important.