When Agatha Christie died in 1976, she was the bestselling mystery writer in history. This collection of new essays brings fresh perspectives to Christie scholarship with new readings and discussions of little-known aspects of her life, career and legacy. The final word is given to fans in an editorial that collates testimonies from readers, collectors and enthusiasts.

Table of Contents Preface Introduction: Mystery and Legacy Agatha Christie in Dialogue with To the Lighthouse: The Modernist Artist (Merja Makinen) England’s Pockets: Objects of Anxiety in Christie’s ­Post-War Novels (Rebecca Mills) Queer Girls, Bad Girls, Dead Girls: ­Post-War Culture and the Modern Girl (Sarah Bernstein) “With practised eyes”: Feminine Identity in The Mysterious Mr. Quin (Charlotte Beyer) “The sumptuous and the alluring”: Poirot’s Women, Dragged Up and Dressed Down (J. C. Bernthal) “The Encyclopedic Palace of the World”: Miss Lemon’s Filing System as Cabinet of Curiosities and the Repository of Human Knowledge in Agatha Christie’s Poirot (Meg Boulton) “One must actually take facts as they are”: Information Value and Information Behavior in the Miss Marple Novels (Michelle M. Kazmer) And Then There Were Many: Agatha Christie in Hungarian Translation (Brigitta Hudácskó) Mother of Invention: Agatha Christie, the Middlebrow Detective Novel and Kerry Greenwood’s Postcolonial Tribute Series (Jilly Lippmann) Autobiography in Agatha (1979): “An imaginary solution to an authentic mystery” (Sarah Street) Editorial: Fans Have the Final Word (J. C. Bernthal) About the Contributors Index