Mystery of the missing tapes

Wednesday, 19th November 2008

Selina Mills on how some newly discovered tapes give us a glimpse into the life of Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie would also be the first to admit she was not a great literary writer and never set out to be, and what is clear from the tapes is that she was happy her books gave entertainment, enjoyment and escapism. Yet she had much support from the literati of her own generation — she was popular with French intellectuals, and deeply admired by the Shakespearean scholar Robert Speaight. And on the publication of the final Hercule Poirot novel in 1975, the fictional Belgian detective was given a front-page obituary in the New York Times.

Christie’s grandson is still painstakingly digitalising the tapes, so it will be a while yet to find out if there are any other hidden ghosts in the attic. But the tapes are a wonderful way of making Agatha Christie real and human and away from the brand. As she writes in 1929 in her short story ‘The Man from the Sea’, ‘You as you may not matter to anyone in the world, but you as a person in a particular place may matter unimaginably.’ The tapes, the books and her character still do.