Agatha Christie was born as Clarissa Agatha Miller, and having taken her first husband Archibald’s surname, she completed her first detective novel “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” in 1916. It was only published four years afterwards after six rejections, introducing Detective Poirot in the second chapter.
Before this, Christie was a nurse – and little known facts about her from her official web home include that she had a special hatred for marmalade pudding, that she named her personal home Styles, and that she obtained a qualification as a pharmaceutical dispenser in April 1917.
But what about her bridge game? Here’s how we got to Cards on the Table.
Cards on the Table
Cards on the Table was first published in 1936, another novel to feature Detective Poirot. As the formula dictates, a murder occurs – and when the host of a bridge game turns up dead, Poirot has to step in to find Mr. Shaitana’s killer, who could only have been one of the players.
It’s classic mystery, classic Christie – and a favorite for bridge fans everywhere. Other Agatha Christie tales including The Incredible Theft also happen to mention bridge, though none are as elaborate as Cards on the Table where bridge becomes part of Poirot’s method.
Its first appearance was as a six-part serial in the Saturday Evening Post, and then later the same year as a novel by Collins Crime Club, today part of HarperCollins.
Agatha Christie’s Disappearance
The Lawn Road Flats: Spies, Writers and Artists by David Burke mentions archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe as “one-time bridge partner of Agatha Christie”, but other resources saying who she played with (and when) are scarce.
She notoriously disappeared for almost two weeks (eleven days, to be exact) during 1926: Her car, a Morris Cowley, was found abandoned after what looked like a crash on the 3rd of December. Her suitcase was found with it. She’d left no indications that she would be going anywhere, and didn’t leave a note.
An immediate search was started for the mystery author. Newspapers published photographs in the hopes that someone would report back with good news, and law enforcement was put on high-alert. One newspaper offered a reward of £100 for any verifiable signs of the author.
Several accounts, including a 2010 article from the New Yorker (“Queen of Crime”), report that she was spotted – among other things – engaging in casual conversation and playing bridge. (Apparently where the topic of the missing writer came up around the bridge table, too.)
She was eventually found at the Old Swan Hotel in Swan Road, Harrogate, where she had checked in under the pseudonym Theresa Neale, an eccentric South African from Cape Town.
The official story, supported by doctor’s reports and her husband Archibald Christie, was that she suffered from amnesia brought on by severe stress, causing her to forget her identity and assume another name.
From the book, it’s obvious she knew her bridge game – and from her disappearance, it’s obvious that she was a bridge player a good ten years before its publication.
She never spoke of her disappearance again.
The Year 1926
It can be said that 1926 was a rough year for Agatha Christie. Possibly putting things in more perspective, it was the same year when she found out that her beloved husband Archibald was cheating on her, shortly before her disappearance – with a woman named Nancy Neale.
Later, she married Max Mallowan, an archaeologist, and they were happily married until Christie’s death.
A 2018 movie called Agatha Christie and the Truth of Murder examines a heavily fictionalized account of Agatha Christie investigating a murder during her disappearance.