Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie was a famous Human writer in the 20th century. Christie was best known as a writer of murder mysteries. Her prolific body of work established her as the best-selling author of all time.
Biography
Life
Christie was known for her mysterious disappearance in 1926. Her car was found abandoned and she was missing for ten days before turning up at a hotel with no memory of what had transpired in that time.
Having found out that husband had begun an extramarital affair, she nevertheless attended a party and met the Doctor (an admirer of Christie's work) and his companion Donna Noble. Together, she assisted them in defeating a confused Vespiform after he committed a series of murders under the influence of Christie's own mystery novel, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. During this adventure, Donna accidentally creates minor anachronisms by making references to Christie's not-yet-written Murder on the Orient Express and her not-yet-created character of Miss Marple. After defeating the Vespifom, a psychic link she had formed with the creature resulted in her losing consciousness. The Doctor, surmising that this event is what caused her memory loss and unexplained absence, actually contribued to this historical event by taking the unconscious Christie forward 10 days and leaving her outside the hotel, where she revives with no memory of the events. Despite this, however, fragments of memory later emerged in her storytelling including Donna's references to Murder on the Orient Express and Miss Marple (thereby creating a minor predestination paradox), and the Vespiform's wasp-like appearance, which inspired a plot element in her later book, Death in the Clouds. (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp).
Christie's works were still in print as late as the year 5,000,000,000 (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp).
In the 1970s, Christie became a Dame of the British Empire, although the Doctor accidentally dubbed her Dame Agatha prematurely during their encounter in 1926.
Works
Apart from The Murder of Roger Ackryod, Christie had written five other novels by 1926. She had not yet written a mystery novel set on the Orient Express. A subconscious memory of the Vespiform remained with Christie, so that a giant wasp appeared on the cover of one of her subsequent novels (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp).
Other information
- Before meeting her with Donna, the Doctor claimed Christie travelled with him (BFA: Terror Firma).
- The Doctor was a fan of Christie's work, and once told Martha Jones that he wanted to meet her (DW: Last of the Time Lords). Apparently, though he admired her work, only one of her books fooled him as far as the identity of the murderer (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp)
Behind the Scenes
- The murder mysteries of Agatha Christie had possibly already inspired the Doctor Who television story The Robots of Death, the Big Finish Productions audio play The Chimes of Midnight and, possibly another television story, Horror of Fang Rock.
- With the exception of Elizabeth II, who has appeared in cameos, the appearance of Agatha Christie as a character in The Unicorn and the Wasp marks the first time a "historical figure" of a person alive during the original run of Doctor Who, which premiered in 1963 has appeared on the series. This happened with the permission of her estate.
- In reality, Christie's disappearance (caused by a fugue state induced by the stress caused by her husband's infidelity) happened in December, rather than in an unspecified month in Spring or Summer, as shown in The Unicorn and the Wasp.
