| Repository | Special Collections Archives (GB 0029) |
| Ref No | EUL MS 99 |
| Date | 1938-1976 |
| Level | Collection |
| Extent | 21 boxes, plus 1 oversize photograph |
| Title | Agatha Christie business papers |
| Description | The archive is the sequence of files from the offices of Hughes Massie and Co. Ltd. relating to Agatha Christie's literary estate prior to her death. For this entire period her agent was Edmund Cork, and these files were created by him to reflect his dealings with publishers, film-makers and other professional persons with an interest in the Christie estate, including Agatha Christie herself, and her husband, Professor Sir Max Mallowan. Each file of correspondence relates to a particular year, and may include correspondence between Agatha Christie and Edmund Cork, correspondence between Cork and an American literary agent, Harold Ober, and other interested parties. There are also files relating to the setting up and administering of Agatha Christie Ltd, and family beneficiaries. The total number of letters in the collection is estimated to be in the region of 5,000-6,000. Only three letters predate 1940, and the files for certain years were not deposited.
Descriptions of individual letters on this catalogue use to the pen name Agatha Christie, even when the letters refer or are addressed to or from her married name, Agatha Mallowan. This decision was made because the novelist is more widely known under her pen name, enabling the archive to be more easily searched.
Files for the years 1938, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947 (1), 1949, 1950 and 1951 have been catalogued down to item level as part of a volunteering project. We are grateful to the volunteers who have worked on this project: Rebecca Williams, Molly Batchelor, Alexander Duffy, Joseph Kelliher and Arthur Moon. For all other years, descriptions of the contents are available at file level. Click the collection reference number to view to full archive hierarchy. A '+' symbol indicates there are subfolders; click these to expand. Click a title to open a detailed record.
Content Advice: Please note that this collection includes problematic terms, or terms that have changed meaning over times, especially in the titles of books, films or plays, such as the original UK title of 'And Then There Were None'. Where these terms appear in titles, they have been included in our catalogue descriptions in order to provide information about the content and nature of the source and enable discoverability. |
| Admin History | Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan (1890-1976), the novelist known as Agatha Christie, was born in Torquay, the third and youngest child of Frederick Alvah Miller of New York and Clarissa Boehmer. She received no education of note but taught herself to read and in this way made up for her lack of schooling. In 1906 she was sent to Paris to study singing and piano in the hope of making a career in the concert hall, but was told she was too reticent for such a role. Returning to Torquay, she rejected one suitor to fall for Archibald Christie, whom she married with two days notice in 1914. After his enrolment in the Royal Flying Corps, she took up work as a nurse at University College Hospital, London. It was at this point that her idea of writing a sleuth story was born, and took the shape of a Belgian, Hercule Poirot, based on characters she met evacuated from the continent. In 1920 her first novel 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles' was published by John Lane, finally introducing Poirot to readers after six earlier attempts to find a publisher had failed. In 1926 she changed her publisher to Collins and at the same time her husband's affections changed to another woman. The first Collins title was a great success and a revolution in the genre of crime writing. It also triggered the meeting between Agatha Christie and Max Mallowan, an archaeologist, whom she visited at Ur and whom she married in 1930, two years after divorcing her first husband, by whom she had a daughter. More than twenty more novels had appeared by 1938, when this series of files begins, and a further forty followed, plus short stories and plays. She went on to become the world's biggest-selling author, and the author of by far the longest-running play in London, 'The Mousetrap'. She was given a CBE in 1956 and an Hon D.Litt. from Exeter in 1961, and in 1971 she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died on 12 January 1976 at her home in Oxfordshire. |
| Language | English |
| Access Status | Open |
| Copyright | No copying or photography of items created by Agatha Christie is permitted without the prior, written permission of the Christie Estate. Visitors should contact the Christie Archive Trust in advance of their visit to request permission. Limited copying of items not created by Agatha Christie is possible for personal research only, but publication of any item requires permission from the relevant copyright holder. |
| Related Material | Original manuscript air mail letter from Agatha Christie to Shirley Dawson, in response to her request for advice on writing (EUL MS 379) held at Special Collections. Christie's literary papers are retained in the possession of the Christie family. Other letter collections are held at Reading University Library, the British Library and St John's College Library, University of Oxford (GB 473 RG/J/Christie). |
| Access Conditions | Some files may contain information on living persons subject to the UK Data Protection Act. Visitors are required to complete and sign our Data Protection form before accessing these files. |
| Arrangement | The original order of the files created by Hughes Massie and Co. Ltd. has been retained. Prior to 1960 subject-related letters, such as fan mail, were filed in the main correspondence files; in later years separate files were created, for the sale or acquisition of land, for example. From the later 1960s fan mail was also separately filed. |
| Finding_Aids | Listed. Full catalogue available online.
THIS CATALOGUE HAS BEEN CREATED WITH THE AID OF A GRANT FROM THE NATIONAL CATALOGUING GRANTS SCHEME |
| Creator_Name | Mallowan, Agatha Mary Clarissa (1890-1976); nee Miller; previously Christie; pen name Agatha Christie; author |
| Cork; Edmund (fl 1930s-1970s); literary agent |
| Various others |
| Mgt_Group | Literary papers |