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Agatha Christie
(1890-1976)
In 1926, popular British mystery novelist Agatha Christie went missing. The reason for her mysterious disappearance may lurk in a forgotten play she penned but never published--The Lie.
Daily Mirror, 7 December 1926 (top left)
Daily Mirror, 10 December 1926 (top right)
The Daily News, 11 December 1926 (right)
On the morning of December 4, 1926, a green Morris Cowley identified as Agatha Christie's car was found crashed in a ditch in rural Surrey. Before long, the story was all over British national headlines: the famous mystery novelist had vanished without a trace.
A panicked nationwide search ensued. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy Sayers joined in the police-led effort to locate their fellow mystery writer. Newspapers capitalized on the story's sensational value. On December 11, The Daily News even went so far as to publish altered photographs depicting how Christie--if she had indeed intended to disappear--might have disguised herself to avoid identification.
Images are in the public domain.
Christie was found eleven days later at a hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, apparently unaware that thousands of people had been searching for her.
Although she was subsequently diagnosed with a temporary form of amnesia, a clue to an alternative explanation lurks in the alias under which she was registered at her Yorkshire hotel: "Mrs Tressa Neele." Several months earlier, Christie's first husband, Archie, had asked her for a divorce because he had fallen in love with a woman named Nancy Neele.
It is likely at about this time that Christie wrote The Lie, the play whose manuscript title page is shown here. This domestic drama recounts the events of one evening in which a young woman who disappears for a day (Nan Gregg) tries vainly to conceal an extramarital one-night stand from her principled but distant husband (John Gregg), who discovers himself to be passionately in love with her younger sister (Nell Reeves).
Photo credit: The Christie Archives Trust.
Although Christie is best known as a prolific author of detective fiction--she published a grand total of sixty-six novels and fourteen short story collections in her lifetime--The Lie testifies to her little-known talent as a playwright. She even adapted several of her mystery novels for the stage, including And Then There Were None.
The Lie was forgotten until it theatre producer Julius Green rediscovered it in 2015 and adapted it for BBC Radio 4, where it was performed for the very first time in 2020. A recording is available here.
This guest post was contributed by V.M. Braganza, lead curator.
Agatha Christie (1890-1976)
The Lie, ca. 1920.
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