New Landmark Book on Agatha Christie's Life and Work to Accompany Major Exhibition

British Library Publishing will publish Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery exploring the writer's life and legacy in October to accompany the British Library’s major exhibition of the same name focusing on the world’s bestselling novelist.

Granted unprecedented access by Agatha Christie Limited and the Christie Archive Trust, the book is edited by lead curator Lucy Rowland and celebrated crime writer Martin Edwards, with a foreword by Sir Kenneth Branagh. Going beyond a traditional exhibition catalogue or biography, the book gathers a broad range of perspectives to trace the influences and events that shaped Christie’s work and her impact on subsequent writers, directors and performers. Mirroring the exhibition’s structure, the reader will be led on a journey through the key locations of Christie’s world from the English country house to the West End theatre, via her time as a nurse and pharmacy dispenser, and inspiration from train travel and archaeological digs.

Highlights include:

• John Curran’s examination of Christie’s notebooks
• an account of her involvement with the Detection Club by its current president Martin Edwards
• Lucy Foley on the craft of Christie and the challenge of taking up her mantle to write a new Miss Marple novel
• actor David Suchet reflecting on how he entered the mind of Hercule Poirot
• Julius Green on Christie’s writing for the theatre
• contributions from Simon Calder, GT Karber, Kate Mosse, James Runcie, Mathew Prichard, Caroline Crampton and Zoë Wanamaker

The book will also showcase rare and never-before-seen material from the Agatha Christie Archive including a 1931 letter to her husband recounting her experience travelling on the Orient Express, family photographs, notebooks, annotated typescripts, and other personal belongings. All are reproduced alongside first editions, rare covers and playscripts from the British Library’s own collections.

"The exhibition offered the publishing team behind the successful British Library Crime Classics series an immense opportunity," said John Lee, Publisher at the British Library. "The result is a multi-voiced, beautifully illustrated, 400-page tie-in book that champions the life and stories of the Queen of Crime. The book is complete with hundreds of photographs, artworks and archival shots, many taken when we had the privilege of spending several inspiring days working with the treasures that will feature in the blockbuster British Library exhibition."

Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery opens at the British Library on October 30 and runs through June 2027.