The Enid Blyton Society

http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/club/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/15/arts/ ... lling.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Quoted From Agatha Christie:Autobiography

A success breeds hatred,jealousy and uneasiness among other people.I
just ignore them and do what I do best.Writing.

It's a wonder how people like to talk and talk and talk.I prefer to
listen and observe....

I cannot satisfy all the readers.They can choose what they read...

Yes,there are detective stories that I do not like but I would not
judge other fellow writers...

I will not make scathing remarks about my fellow writers.....

I do read detective novels by other writers so that I won't write the
same plot...

Maybe ones have the same idea but ones execute the idea
differently...

Quoted from one of the Miss Marple novel[author Agatha Christie]:

Women are wicked but sometimes they can be gentle.


Quoted from Margery Allingham[detective author] in Daily Graphic in 1940s:

I have often thought that Mrs. Christie was not so much the best as
the only living writer of the true or classic detective story...Her
simple aim for she IS a simple person with acute mind and very
observent is to write a puzzle story to keep us curious and leave us
pleased, and she pulls it off every blessed time.

But Agatha Christie wrote a tribute to Margery Allingham shortly after Allingham dies in 1966:

....And there Margery Allingham books stand out like shining light.Everything she writes has a definite shape.The people, their characters,the very distinctive atmosphere in which they move and have their being-never twice the same-each books has its oen separate and distinctive background.

I barely knew Margery Allingham.She was like myself, a member of the Detection Club, and I met her there once or twice....

If I say that I don't know at all what she was like,that is the truth,and that make her interesting to me,because one so often thinks one knows more or less just what someone one has met is like. She talked and smiled-she was nice....

Bravo!Margery Allingham, your fellow writes won't forget you.


Margaret Cole[detective author] made a sarcastic comment in her eighties about how
Agatha Christie appeared to havr forgotten all about the "Rules."
Maybe there was a little jealousy over all the publicity and sales
Agatha Christie enjoyed. It's only human nature!

What other fellow detective writers said about Agatha Christie?


Gladys Mitchell[detective writer]....."She is very shy and reserved....."

Christianna Brand[detective wirter]....."Agatha was shy and quiet.She just sat there(Detection Club dinner) and smiled.But she was very observant.......Nor had the lady herself great pretensions in that quarter......

H.R.F Keating[detective writer]....."One of the pleasant woman to be around with...she talked less but her eyes were very observant...."

Julian Symons[detective writer]....".....I became aware that her mild unemphatic gaze was often directed at....she was very observant"

Elizabeth Walter[detective writer]....."Although she was one of the world's biggest sellers,outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare,Agatha Christie was remarkably modest.She never expected the day's work at Collins to be abandoned because she had crossed the threshold,and far from her craving publicity,her experience of it after the alleged 'disappearance' of 1926 caused her to shun it.She would never make a speech in public.

Reference:

Agatha CHristie:An autobiography.

Agatha Christie First Lady Of Crime-edited by H.R.F Keating.

Bloody murders by Julian Symons.

A Talent to Deceive:An Appreciation of Agatha Christie by Robert Barnard.

The name of Hercule Popeau created by Marie Belloc Lowndes was the inspiration for Hercule Poirot.

I always enjoy your posts about Agatha Christie Sixret,in conjunction with your post wiki states;

Poirot's name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poirot, a retired Belgian police officer living in London.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercule_Poirot" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you, Pete. But I've got my information(all the GAD information for that matter) from the GAD group. All the GAD experts gather there:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/GAdetection/info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Feel free to visit the group.

P/s: wiki is unreliable.

I am always sceptical of these statements. I'm not doubting your sources, sixret, but we all know what has been written about Enid's inspirations! Unless the author says it herself, I wonder about these so called facts. I take this from the official Agatha Christie website:

So where did the inspiration for Hercule Poirot come from? During the First World War there were Belgian refugees in most parts of the English countryside, Torquay being no exception. Although he was not based on any particular person, Agatha thought that a Belgian refugee, a former great Belgian policeman, would make an excellent detective for The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Hercule Poirot was born.

You may well be right about Agatha's inspiration behind the name, but will we ever know? Of course, it depends upon from where your Yahoo Group gathers its information.

Yes Nigel. I am fully agreed with you. In fact, there have been arguments(still ongoing) for both sides( whether Christie used the name because it was a common name for Belgian or French at that time or she got the inspiration from reading other detective novels).

Off topic:

Sometimes, even author' statement could be contradicted. Based on evidence, of course...

Enid explains in The Story of My Life that she did not plan a work of fiction before starting to write it. Often, she had no clear idea where the plot was heading. Instead, she simply allowed the story to unfold in her mind as she typed, relying on her fertile imagination rather than on conscious invention.....


Although I have provided some evidence of planning, which contradicts Enid's statement that she did not plan her books before starting to write, I believe that, in general, her description of how her stories......

Read this whole excellent article written by Anita in the author section....

The new adaptation of Tommy and Tuppence.

http://pastoffences.wordpress.com/2014/ ... rt-series/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/201 ... mment-form" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/f ... -drama-bbc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How can N or M be updated to the 50s, when it was set in WWII and features fifth columnists/German spies???

Perhaps they are 'sleepers' waiting to become an active terrorist cell! I would hate to see any of these books updated as I love their period 'feel' - makes them even more interesting than when they were written.

I expect to be horrified. Anything else will be a bonus!

I've bought some facsimilie editions of Agatha's books at a book fair. They reproduce the Crime Club editions published years ago and they are hardbacks with dust wrappers. I got three for a tenner.

The title of the new Hercule Poirot novel written by Sophie Hannah -The Monogram Murders

Release Date: September 2014.

Available for pre-order from Amazon UK and Amazon US.



Link:

http://doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogs ... oirot.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

To all Christies' fans out there, watch out.