Was it revenge, depression or amnesia?

By the mid 1920s, Agatha Christie had established her reputation as an accomplished crime novelist.

Some journalists ventured to suggest that the novelist had deliberately drowned herself.

At the encouragement of her older sister, Margaret – herself a writer who was often published in Vanity Fair – Agatha wrote the first of her many detective novels, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. After she returned home, the deeply private author claimed “amnesia” had caused her to flee. Starring: Ruth Bradley, Pippa Haywood, Dean Andrews. That night I felt terribly miserable. The only explanation she ever offered publicly was in a 1928 interview with The Daily Mail, the same year she and her husband divorced.

She had then boarded a train to Harrogate.

), Over 90 years later, biographers and historians are still debating what happened during those days in 1926. Close to the scene of the car accident was a natural spring known as the Silent Pool, where two young children were reputed to have died.

Harrogate was the height of elegance in the 1920s and filled with fashionable young things. In a dramatized depiction of her 11-day disappearance, novelist Agatha Christie solves a real murder amid a crisis in her writing and marriage. But there was one important development. Author turned up at … They said Christie’s brother-in-law had received a letter from her, saying she was going to a Yorkshire spa “for rest and treatment.” Case closed, right?

"The car struck something with a jerk and pulled up suddenly. Indeed, she kept him waiting in the hotel lounge while she changed into her evening dress.

Nearly three decades after the discovery of the T-virus, an outbreak reveals the Umbrella Corporation's dark secrets.

Copyright © Historic UK Ltd. Company Registered in England No. She vanished after kissing daughter goodbye at home in Sunningdale, Berkshire. Certainly her apparent failure to recognise him would seem to endorse this theory.

After she met Mallowan, Christie’s life seemed to settle and she was able to focus on her writing – penning two to three books a year – including Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express.

She said: “She was not herself.

It is said that the discovery of this affair and Archie’s request for a divorce was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, especially since it followed the death of Agatha’s beloved mother Clara from bronchitis.

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Detectives “are now said to be of the opinion that it is a case of suicide,” The Times reported.

According to Psychology Today, people who experience this rare dissociative disorder typically lose awareness of their identity and engage in some form of unexpected travel.

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Agatha Christie's disappeared for 11 days in 1926 and sparked a nationwide hunt. She kissed her sleeping daughter Rosalind, aged seven, goodnight and made her way back downstairs again. She would not be seen again for 11 days. However, the couple went their separate ways soon afterwards with Archie marrying Nancy Neale and Agatha marrying archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan and no one involved ever spoke of the disappearance again. This state of "bewildered wandering" can last anywhere from a few hours to several months, and once it's over, the sufferer usually has no memory of it taking place. This proved no less futile. ‘I believe she was suicidal,’ says Norman. “I left home that night in a state of high nervous strain with the intention of doing something desperate.”. Agatha Christie's mysterious 11-day disappearance after husband's affair exposed Her sixth book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, was selling well, with fans swept up in the latest instalment of the now-iconic Hercule Poirot series. However, despite her success Christie kept a tight rein on the family finances insisting on a careful, modest lifestyle. Their specialist knowledge, it was hoped, would help find the missing writer. It was a ­tempestuous time, full of ups and downs and deep unhappiness ­because we had the feeling that we were reaching out for something we would never attain.”. I felt that I could go on no longer. "The person who owns it is half dazed and half purposeful.

The mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie. However, as my daughter was with me in the car, I dismissed the idea at once. Crowds at King's Cross station hope to catch a glimpse of Christie. In 2008, an episode of “Dr.

The novelist was found at a Yorkshire spa, nine days after she disappeared.

What instinctive need is ­satisfied by terror? The Yorkshire spa hotel was famous for its Turkish baths. It even made the front page of the New York Times. From unexplained mysteries to moments that have changed history, Extraordinary Stories will take you down the rabbit hole and make you never want to leave.

During this time, a number of Belgian refugees had settled in Torquay and were said to have provided the inspiration for the fledgling writer’s most famous Belgian Detective; one Hercule Poirot. Yet amid this success, Christie was suffering. Christie was already a household name following the success of her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Police search a pond near where Christie's car was found. Suggestions ranged from a nervous breakdown brought on by the death of her mother and embarrassment of her husband’s affair, to a cynical publicity stunt to promote the successful but still little known author. So what was the truth behind her disappearance?

Recent biographies, like one by Laura Thompson, shed little light on the episode.

There was an especially tantalizing detail near the end of the story: Christie, the paper claimed, had been spooked by her own house.

Learn more about our use of cookies and information. More than 1,000 police officers and hundreds of civilians were involved in the search for the writer and, for the first time ever, aeroplanes were used. … When I reached a point on the road which I thought was near the quarry, I turned the car off the road down the hill toward it.

Who” speculated about the novelist’s disappearance. Writing stories became her form of escape. Then she climbed into her Morris Cowley and drove off into the night.

The police, scrambling for clues, turned to Christie’s manuscripts, examining what they thought was her work in progress, “The Blue Train.”, Between 10,000 and 15,000 people took part in the search for Mrs. Christie, aided by “six trained bloodhounds, a crate load of Airedale terriers, many retrievers and Alsatian police dogs, and even the services of common mongrels.”. Christie was a nurse for the Voluntary Aid Detachment in a Red Cross Hospital in Torquay.

When the war ended the couple moved to London for Archie to take up a post at the Air Ministry. Wild parties, sex, drugs, drink and outrageous behaviour…. The Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple author vanished in 1926 after learning her husband was having an affair - when she re-appeared she had no memory of what happened, Our free email newsletter sends you the biggest headlines from news, sport and showbiz.

Years later, it was revealed that Agatha Christie had, in fact, used the name of her husband’s girlfriend. The relatively unknown writer suddenly became front page news and a handsome reward was offered for any new evidence or sightings. Agatha Christie did nothing to arouse suspicions as she joined in with the balls, dances and Palm Court entertainment.

Newspapers offered rewards for information and her …

The author’s books have sold more than two billion copies and her stage play The Mousetrap is the world’s longest-running drama.

Police search a pond for Agatha Christie's car, When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. (He was having an affair with a younger woman; the public did not know this, but his wife definitely did.) But she checked in to the hotel using the name Theresa Neele. He pointed to her 1928 interview and her semi-autobiographical novel, Unfinished Portrait (published under the pen name Mary Westmacott) in which she wrote of her lead character's suicide attempt: "She admitted that it had been very wicked of her to try.".

Although she was also a successful playwright responsible for the longest-running play in theatre history – The Mousetrap – Agatha is best known for the 66 detective novels and 14 collections of short stories written under her married name ‘Christie’. Christie, who was born Agatha Miller, had a happy childhood in Torquay, Devon, which she said was largely due to her “very agreeable” father Frederick and mother Clarissa.

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She is alive," Leaf told the author, according to a letter he wrote to the Morning Press. ‘Her state of mind was very low and she writes about it later through the character of Celia in her autobiographical novel Unfinished Portrait.’.

The official website for BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine. Harrogate Hydro, the spa where Christie was found. Oddly, Christie had booked into the hotel under the name Neele. Spiritualists even held a séance at the chalk pit.

The crime writer pictured in 1926, the year she vanished, She vanished several days after learning husband Colonel Archie Christie (pictured) asked for a divorce, A car being used in a police reconstruction of events surrounding the disappearance, The author's iconic characters include the detective Hercule Poirot, played by David Suchet, Pictured with her daughter Rosalind in 1924, The young Christie had learnt to read by five, The Daily Mirror at the time of her disappearance, Subscribe to Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror newspapers, Brutal Christmas killing of Paul Castellano - one of New York’s most feared Mafia bosses, What happened to missing mum Patrice Endres? Some said the incident was nothing more than a publicity stunt, a clever ruse to promote her new book.

Fellow novelist and creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, even took one of Christie's gloves to medium Horace Leaf in hope of finding answers. But historian Andrew Norman had offered a different explanation in his 2006 biography, Agatha Christie: The finished portrait. The film premiered on Channel 5 … The 1920s or the Roaring Twenties was the decade of boom and bust, of flappers and playboys, jazz and the Charleston, Bertie Wooster and the Great Gatsby, the General Strike and Wall Street Crash. But she was madly in love with him.

Write Box R 702, The Times, EC4.". Christie was 36 at the time and had already published several detective novels, including “The Secret Adversary” and “The Murder on the Links.” Her disappearance merited banner headlines the world over, making the front page of The Times on Dec. 6. Four months earlier, the author’s mother Clarissa had also died. Our.

Police search for Agatha Christie near the place where her car had been abandoned. A few days before her disappearance, Christie discovered her husband Archie had been having an affair with his golf partner, Nancy Neele. To anyone. And so the biggest mystery of her life remains just that.

Her passion for poisons and potions continued and she prided herself on her professional knowledge of “the ­bottles of arsenic and digitalis” which turned up frequently in her whodunnits. Dame Agatha Christie is still known as the queen of crime ­fiction, 100 years after her debut novel was published.