Christie, Agatha

Autograph letter signed ("Agatha Christie"), 3 1/2 pages (7 x 5 1/4 in.; 178 x 134 mm) on a bifolium of Winterbrook House letterhead, Wallingford, Berkshire, 10 November [1945], to Lois Weir (at Blackfoot, Idaho), with original autograph envelope; mounting remnant to envelope verso. Green buckram portfolio.

The Queen of Crime Fiction patiently answers "a lot of questions" from an American fan and aspiring author. "I started thinking about stories & planning them about 12. I sold a poem & a story when I was about 20—but most of them came back! My first book was refused—it was a very long novel. My first book to be taken was The Mysterious Affair at Styles—I think I was 22 then. One of my sisters writes plays & an occasional short story. I didn't know many professional writers apart from Eden Phillpotts (who writes books about Dartmoor) who was very kind & encouraging to me & urged me to go on writing." But Christie warns Weir that she does not "think anyone can help you much—except on mechanical points such as length, form, etc.—or possibly criticize a very glaring fault or inconsistencies."

Christie concludes with a summary of her life during the Blitz: "Yes, it's wonderful that the war is over. And I have stayed in London all through it & have seen every kind of bomb & always slept in my own bed & not in a shelter. Have had one house bombed so as to be uninhabitable—& windows broken several times. I have been working in a Hospital Dispensary all through."