Agatha Christie's widower's recollections of his archaeological triumphs and life with Agatha.

This is the first full-length biography of Sir Max Mallowan (1904-78), archaeologist and husband of Agatha Christie. Trained by the great Leonard Woolley at the site of the royal cemetery at Ur in the mid 1920s, Max Mallowan then excavated at previously untried sites in north-eastern Syria. After the Second World War, he returned to Iraq to supervise over a period of 12 years the excavation of the important city of Nimrud.

As head of household for none other than Agatha Christie, Phyllida Bright finds her position includes polishing silver, serving luncheons…and drawing inspiration from the crime author’s fictional detectives when mysterious deaths at Mallowan Hall baffle her famous employer… Tucked away among Devon’s rolling green hills, Mallowan Hall combines the best of English tradition with the modern conveniences of 1930. Housekeeper Phyllida Bright manages the large household with an iron fist in her very elegant glove. In one respect, however, Mallowan Hall stands far apart from other picturesque country houses. For the manor is home to archaeologist Max Mallowan and his famous wife—Agatha Christie… Phyllida is both loyal to and protective of the crime writer, who is as much friend as employer. An aficionado of detective fiction, Phyllida has yet to find a gentleman in real life half as fascinating as Mrs. Agatha’s Belgian hero, Hercule Poirot. But though accustomed to murder and its methods as frequent topics of conversation, Phyllida is unprepared for the sight of a very real, very dead body on the library floor… It soon becomes clear that the victim arrived at Mallowan Hall under false pretenses during a weekend party. And when another dead body is discovered—this time, one of her housemaids—Phyllida decides to follow in M. Poirot’s footsteps to determine which of the Mallowans’ guests is the killer. Now only Phyllida’s wits will prevent her own story from coming to an abrupt end…

Although she is the most popular novelist in history, with over two billion books sold worldwide, Agatha Christie lived a life shrouded in secrecy and fueled by curiosity. Nearly as notorious for her aversion to the press as she was for her 80 books and collections of short stories, Christie made no secret of her need for privacy. Utilizing over 5,000 previously unpublished letters, notes, and documents, award-winning biographer Richard Hack allows Christie to write again, 33 years after her death. Duchess of Death is her story, as full of romance, travel, wealth, and scandal as any mystery Christie ever crafted. There have been numerous biographies of the Queen of Crime, all of which claim to be definitive. However, Duchess of Death is the first to draw from such an enormous number of previously unpublished correspondence and notes, effectively establishing it as the most authoritative, penetrating look at the personal and literary life of Christie.

It has been one hundred years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. A brilliant and award winning biographer, Laura Thompson now turns her sharp eye to Agatha Christie. Arguably the greatest crime writer in the world, Christie's books still sell over four million copies each year—more than thirty years after her death—and it shows no signs of slowing.But who was the woman behind these mystifying, yet eternally pleasing, puzzlers? Thompson reveals the Edwardian world in which Christie grew up, explores her relationships, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the many mysteries still surrounding Christie's life, most notably, her eleven-day disappearance in 1926.Agatha Christie is as mysterious as the stories she penned, and writing about her is a detection job in itself. With unprecedented access to all of Christie's letters, papers, and notebooks, as well as fresh and insightful interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction, but the truth behind this mysterious woman.

This book, which accompanies a new international exhibition, should appeal to fans of crime novels, archaeology, the Orient and biography alike. Using sumptuous colour photographic illustration, this book sets out to recreate Agatha Christie's life in the Orient, with reference to both her novels and her personal diaries. Using artefacts and personal photographs from archaeological excavation, and her own accounts of travel and her relationship with archaeologist Max Mallowan, this book paints an unusual and striking picture of her as an intellectual, author and explorer. The influence of her experience can clearly be seen through her novels, such as Murder on the Orient Express, which are not only set in an exotic landscape but also evoke the colour and feel of the Orient through her descriptions of costume, decoration and place. Using examples from both text and film, this book gives an insight into a fascinating woman who has captivated generations of readers with her skills as a suspense writer; a talent which has almost eclipsed in the public view her remarkable life.

Briefly describes the rediscovery and decipherment of the Mesopotamian myths and legends, introduces and retells the Epic of Gilgamesh, and others, and examines their importance, both past and present

This book continues the personal story of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (1920âe"1994) that began with The First Well: A Bethlehem Boyhood. Jabra was one of the Middle Eastâe(tm)s leading novelists, poets, critics, painters, and translators (he was the first to translate The Sound and the Fury into Arabic), and is the writer who is given credit for modernizing the Arabic novel. This book not only helps us understand Jabra as a writer and human being but also his times in postâe"World War II Baghdad when Iraq was enjoying an unprecedented period of creativity in literature and the arts. As a bright and inquisitive young man he became friends with the archeologist Max Mallowan and his wife, who, he later learned, was Agatha Christie (she wrote The Mousetrap during this period, in a little mud brick room). Jabraâe(tm)s intellectual autobiography quickly developed as he traveled to Jerusalem, Oxford, and Harvard University, where he studied with I. A. Richards and Archibald MacLeish. A number of different teaching posts in Baghdad provided him opportunities to become friends with many leading poets, such as Buland al-Haydari and Tawfiq Sayigh; historians like George Antonius; and the renowned translators of Arabic literature Desmond Stewart and Denys Johnson-Davies. But this book is not only about matters of the mind, it is about matters of the heart as well. Jabra beautifully describes his lengthy love affair with a young Muslim woman, the beautiful Lamica, whom he first met near Princessesâe(tm) Street and whom he eventually married. He recounts all of the difficulties they had to surmount, and the pleasures to be had. This is the last book that Jabra published during his lifetime. Not only is Jabraâe(tm)s life an outstanding example of the circumstancesâe"and fateâe"of the Palestinian in the twentieth century, but it also provides countless interesting insights into the cultural life of the Middle East in general and its modes of interconnection with the West.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "A stunning story... The ending is ingenious, and it's possible that Benedict has brought to life the most plausible explanation for why Christie disappeared for 11 days in 1926."—The Washington Post The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room returns with a thrilling reconstruction of one of the most notorious events in literary history: Agatha Christie's mysterious 11-day disappearance in 1926. In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car—strange for a frigid night. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away. The puzzle of those missing eleven days has persisted. With her trademark historical fiction exploration into the shadows of the past, acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such murky historical mysteries. What is real, and what is mystery? What role did her unfaithful husband play, and what was he not telling investigators? Agatha Christie novels have withstood the test of time, due in no small part to Christie's masterful storytelling and clever mind that may never be matched, but Agatha Christie's untold history offers perhaps her greatest mystery of all. Fans of The Secrets We Kept, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, and The Alice Network will enjoy this riveting saga of literary history, suspense, and love gone wrong. Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Marie Benedict: Lady Clementine The Only Woman in the Room Carnegie's Maid The Other Einstein

This new and revised edition of Hilary Macaskill's classic book, with many new illustrations, offers an insight into the life and work of the world's bestselling author. Hilary Macaskill examines the houses that meant most to Agatha Christie, including her childhood home, Ashfield, in Torquay; Winterbrook in Oxfordshire, and, above all, Greenway, soaring above the River Dart and Agatha's favorite home from 1938 to the end of her life in 1976 (though requisitioned in the Second World War by the Admiralty, and from 1943 to 1945 home also to the United States Coast Guard). The author also explores more temporary abodes, not only a succession of flats and houses in London (mainly in Kensington and Chelsea) but also the homes she set up at the digs (mostly in the Middle East) that she traveled to with her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan, and the hotels - notably the Moorland Hotel on Dartmoor, to which she adjourned in the grip of writer's block to complete her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and the Burgh Island Hotel, a major inspiration for And Then There Were None and Evil Under the Sun.