Come, Tell Me How You Live
Encyclopedia
Come, Tell Me How You Live is a short book of autobiography
and travel literature
by crime writer Agatha Christie
. It is one of only two books she wrote and had published under both of her married names of "Christie" and "Mallowan" (the other being Star Over Bethlehem and other stories
) and was first published in the UK in November 1946
by William Collins and Sons
and in the same year in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
. The UK edition retailed for ten shillings and sixpence
(10/6) and the US edition at $3.00.
(1871) by Lewis Carroll
, is also word play
on the word "Tell
", used to describe an archaeological mound or site.
after her husband, Max Mallowan
, had been posted to Egypt
with the British Council
in February 1942 and she was living alone in London. She occupied her hours by working in a hospital dispensary, using the knowledge she had gained doing the same job in the First World War
working two full days, three half-days and alternate Saturday mornings and, "The rest of the time, I wrote." She also stated that, "It is only now that I fully realise, looking back over my wartime output, that I produced an incredible amount of stuff over those years." One of those books was Come, Tell Me How You Live. She wrote this book "out of nostalgia" feeling badly the separation from Max and wanting to recapture the "poignant remembrance of our days in Arpachiyah
and Syria
." She admitted herself that it was "light-hearted and frivolous" but that it was an accurate reflection of the time and events that the book portrays. Christie finished the book in June 1945, one month after a delighted reunion with her husband and passed it round for comment and opinion about the suitability for publication. Supportive of the work was Stephen Glanville
(who had previously assisted with the play Akhnaton
and pushed Christie into writing Death Comes as the End
), Edmund Cork and Max himself to who it was given as a homecoming present. Less enthusiastic was Sidney Smith, Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum
. He was a family friend and cautioned her that, "while the whole thing is thoroughly enjoyable reading, I am not quite sure that you would be wise to print it at all."
Another party who was unenthusiastic about the book was her publisher, William Collins and Sons
, who were "suspicious and disapproving" but "the book was a success, and I think they then regretted that paper was so short."
Christie’s chronology is concatenated and somewhat confused in the book from the actual events of the 1930s although she never specifies any year. In the last two months of 1934, Christie joined Max and a young architect Robin Macartney (called Mac in the book) on a surveying expedition in Syria. Mallowan’s previous expedition and the first he commanded had been in Arpachiyah
, north-east of Ninevah in Iraq
in 1933 but that country had become too dangerous, hence the move. In describing the departure from Victoria Station, Christie names her daughter Rosalind
as being fourteen when she was in fact one year older. Robin Macartney was a talented though shy draughtsman who later drew the dustjackets for four of Christie’s 1930's UK editions (Murder in Mesopotamia
, Murder in the Mews
, Death on the Nile
and Appointment with Death
). She also wrote how she she unsuccessfully tried to make herself like cigarettes by smoking two a day for six months. Max also tried to introduce her to various wines, but acknowledged defeat, so had the battle of obtaining water for her in restaurants.
The book then gives the impression that only one season was exclusively conducted at Chagar Bazar
whereas the Mallowans were there for two years (1935/6). The narrative then further complicates matters by stating that other members joined these first expeditions such as Colonel Burn (referred to as "the Colonel" in the book) and Louis Osman (called "Bumps" after his own description of the Tells). In reality these two members and others joined the expedition in the spring of 1937 when the team extended their efforts to excavating not just at Chagar Bazar but also Tell Brak. The chronology then reverts to being correct when the Mallowans finish at these sites and move for a short period of time to the Balikh Valley in 1938. In 1939 the international situation was deemed to be too dangerous to continue and the Mallowans did not recommence their archaeological work until 1947 with another surveying expedition, this time returning to Iraq.
Christie described the book in her own foreword as, "small beer – a very little book, full of everyday doings and happenings". There is little effort made to educate the reader in the ancient history of the places that are being excavated or in the methods of archaeology itself. Instead she paints a vivid picture of the human side of their expeditions and the personalities, both European and Asiatic, involved. The latter, in particular, are presented in a very sympathetic manner. Christie’s infectious enthusiasm for the region, its peoples and the life they led while working there comes through in the work in a way which led Jacquetta Hawkes
(who worked with the Mallowans in Nimrud
in the 1950s) to describe the book in a foreword to the 1983 Bodley Head edition as "a pure pleasure to read."
In her 2007 biography of Christie, Laura Thompson writes that the book, "is written to please one person, at least: her husband. It has a slightly manic style, as different as can be from that of her fiction, although in its way the book is equally artful".
Professor Rushbrook Williams in The Times Literary Supplement
of December 28, 1946 was less impressed: “The enthusiasts of detective fiction who regard the publication of a new “Agatha Christie” as a landmark will experience something of a shock when they turn over these pages. Here is no ingenious plot, no artfully contrived love-interest, no unmasking after satisfying suspense, of the horrid criminal. While those who know something of archaeological work in the Near East, and recognise in Mrs Mallowan’s minor misfortunes and victimizations an echo of their own experiences, will sometimes chuckle as they read, the ordinary person will find the whole thing too long drawn out. The book, indeed, is reminiscent of the ‘letters from dear Uncle William’ types of literature – excellent for reading aloud by those, and to those, who know Uncle William, but a shade tedious to persons outside the family circle.”
Elizabeth Monroe in the November 24, 1946 issue of The Observer
opined that, "For all its flippancy the book is a contribution to literature on the Middle East. For it contains nostalgic descriptions of the profusion of mounds that mark bygone lives, and of the silence that surrounds them now, and of the flowers that cover them if you arrive on the right morning in the spring."
A review by "H.J.F." in The Guardian
s issue of November 22, 1946 stated that the idea of writing the book was, "characteristically bright" and concluded, "The reader need not expect to find anything here about the famous Mallowan excavations which have done so much to fill out the heretofore thin web of the story of the origins of cultivation. That is to be sought in learned journals, and Agatha Christie's part therein is no small one. We wonder how many of the people who enjoy her books think of their being written, as often as not, in the desert amid mounds of forgotten cities in a region that was once full of life."
The photographs contained in later editions are different to those in the 1946 first edition. The latter contains only photographs of the sights of the digs, the workers and the local population. Later editions included photographs of Christie, Max Mallowan and some of the other individuals named in the book.
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
and travel literature
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
by crime writer Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
. It is one of only two books she wrote and had published under both of her married names of "Christie" and "Mallowan" (the other being Star Over Bethlehem and other stories
Star Over Bethlehem and other stories
Star Over Bethlehem and Other Stories is an illustrated book of poetry and short stories on a religious theme by crime writer Agatha Christie. It was published under the name "Agatha Christie Mallowan"...
) and was first published in the UK in November 1946
1946 in literature
The year 1946 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*November 7 - Walker Percy marries Mary Bernice Townsend.*Launch in the United Kingdom of Penguin Classics under the editorship of E. V...
by William Collins and Sons
William Collins (publisher)
William Collins was a Scottish schoolmaster and publisher.Collins was born near Glasgow in 1789. In 1819 he set up a publishing business, initially selling religious books. He produced the first Collins dictionary in 1824, when he also obtained a licence to publish the Bible...
and in the same year in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company
Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990. Its history properly began in 1870, with the retirement of its founder, Moses Woodruff Dodd. Control passed to his son Frank...
. The UK edition retailed for ten shillings and sixpence
British sixpence coin
The sixpence, known colloquially as the tanner, or half-shilling, was a British pre-decimal coin, worth six pence, or 1/40th of a pound sterling....
(10/6) and the US edition at $3.00.
Explanation of the book's title
The book's title, a quote from verse three of the White Knight’s poem, Haddocks' Eyes from chapter eight of Through the Looking-GlassThrough the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
(1871) by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, is also word play
Word play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...
on the word "Tell
Tell
A tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.-Archaeology:A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and...
", used to describe an archaeological mound or site.
Background to book
Christie first thought of writing the book in 1938 and wrote to her literary agent, Edmund Cork, in the July of year that suggesting the project, telling him that it would be, "not at all serious or archaeological". In the event, she wrote the book during the Second World WarWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
after her husband, Max Mallowan
Max Mallowan
Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, CBE was a prominent British archaeologist, specialising in ancient Middle Eastern history, and the second husband of Dame Agatha Christie.-Life and work:...
, had been posted to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
with the British Council
British Council
The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
in February 1942 and she was living alone in London. She occupied her hours by working in a hospital dispensary, using the knowledge she had gained doing the same job in the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
working two full days, three half-days and alternate Saturday mornings and, "The rest of the time, I wrote." She also stated that, "It is only now that I fully realise, looking back over my wartime output, that I produced an incredible amount of stuff over those years." One of those books was Come, Tell Me How You Live. She wrote this book "out of nostalgia" feeling badly the separation from Max and wanting to recapture the "poignant remembrance of our days in Arpachiyah
Tell Arpachiyah
Tell Arpachiyah was an Ancient Near Eastprehistoric site about 4 miles from Nineveh. The proper name of the site is Tepe Reshwa.-History:The site was occupied in the Halaf and Ubaid periods. It appears...
and Syria
Greater Syria
Greater Syria , also known simply as Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the Near East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant....
." She admitted herself that it was "light-hearted and frivolous" but that it was an accurate reflection of the time and events that the book portrays. Christie finished the book in June 1945, one month after a delighted reunion with her husband and passed it round for comment and opinion about the suitability for publication. Supportive of the work was Stephen Glanville
Stephen Glanville
Stephen Ranulph Kingdon Glanville, MBE was an English historian and egyptologist.-Biography:S R K Glanville was born in Westminster, London, the eldest son of Stephen James Glanville and Nannie Elizabeth . He was first cousin to Frank Kingdon-Ward the explorer and botanist and also related to...
(who had previously assisted with the play Akhnaton
Akhnaton (play)
Akhnaton is a play by Agatha Christie. It was written in 1937, around the same time she was writing Death on the Nile. It is set in Ancient Egypt, and followed the exploits of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhnaton, his wife Nefertiti and his successor Tutankhaton...
and pushed Christie into writing Death Comes as the End
Death Comes as the End
Death Comes as the End is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in October 1944 and in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March of the following year...
), Edmund Cork and Max himself to who it was given as a homecoming present. Less enthusiastic was Sidney Smith, Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. He was a family friend and cautioned her that, "while the whole thing is thoroughly enjoyable reading, I am not quite sure that you would be wise to print it at all."
Another party who was unenthusiastic about the book was her publisher, William Collins and Sons
William Collins (publisher)
William Collins was a Scottish schoolmaster and publisher.Collins was born near Glasgow in 1789. In 1819 he set up a publishing business, initially selling religious books. He produced the first Collins dictionary in 1824, when he also obtained a licence to publish the Bible...
, who were "suspicious and disapproving" but "the book was a success, and I think they then regretted that paper was so short."
Christie’s chronology is concatenated and somewhat confused in the book from the actual events of the 1930s although she never specifies any year. In the last two months of 1934, Christie joined Max and a young architect Robin Macartney (called Mac in the book) on a surveying expedition in Syria. Mallowan’s previous expedition and the first he commanded had been in Arpachiyah
Tell Arpachiyah
Tell Arpachiyah was an Ancient Near Eastprehistoric site about 4 miles from Nineveh. The proper name of the site is Tepe Reshwa.-History:The site was occupied in the Halaf and Ubaid periods. It appears...
, north-east of Ninevah in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
in 1933 but that country had become too dangerous, hence the move. In describing the departure from Victoria Station, Christie names her daughter Rosalind
Rosalind Hicks
Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Hicks was the only child of author Agatha Christie, and from the time of Christie's death in 1976 worked to maintain and strengthen the reputation of her mother as a literary figure, and to protect the integrity of her works.-Death:At her death in 2004, Rosalind Hicks...
as being fourteen when she was in fact one year older. Robin Macartney was a talented though shy draughtsman who later drew the dustjackets for four of Christie’s 1930's UK editions (Murder in Mesopotamia
Murder in Mesopotamia
Murder in Mesopotamia is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on July 6, 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence and the US edition at $2.00.The...
, Murder in the Mews
Murder in the Mews
Murder in the Mews and Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club on March 15, 1937...
, Death on the Nile
Death on the Nile
Death on the Nile is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 1, 1937 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence and the US edition at $2.00.The book...
and Appointment with Death
Appointment with Death
Appointment with Death is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on May 2, 1938 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year...
). She also wrote how she she unsuccessfully tried to make herself like cigarettes by smoking two a day for six months. Max also tried to introduce her to various wines, but acknowledged defeat, so had the battle of obtaining water for her in restaurants.
The book then gives the impression that only one season was exclusively conducted at Chagar Bazar
Chagar Bazar
Chagar Bazar is an ancient site in northern Syria, about 35 kilometers north of Al-Hasakah, occupied from the sixth to the second millennium BC. It is situated by the small river Dara, a tributary to the Khabur River. Alternative spellings are Tell Chagar Bazar, or Šagir Bazar.-History:Chagar...
whereas the Mallowans were there for two years (1935/6). The narrative then further complicates matters by stating that other members joined these first expeditions such as Colonel Burn (referred to as "the Colonel" in the book) and Louis Osman (called "Bumps" after his own description of the Tells). In reality these two members and others joined the expedition in the spring of 1937 when the team extended their efforts to excavating not just at Chagar Bazar but also Tell Brak. The chronology then reverts to being correct when the Mallowans finish at these sites and move for a short period of time to the Balikh Valley in 1938. In 1939 the international situation was deemed to be too dangerous to continue and the Mallowans did not recommence their archaeological work until 1947 with another surveying expedition, this time returning to Iraq.
Christie described the book in her own foreword as, "small beer – a very little book, full of everyday doings and happenings". There is little effort made to educate the reader in the ancient history of the places that are being excavated or in the methods of archaeology itself. Instead she paints a vivid picture of the human side of their expeditions and the personalities, both European and Asiatic, involved. The latter, in particular, are presented in a very sympathetic manner. Christie’s infectious enthusiasm for the region, its peoples and the life they led while working there comes through in the work in a way which led Jacquetta Hawkes
Jacquetta Hawkes
Jacquetta Hawkes was a British archaeologist.Born Jessie Jacquetta Hopkins, the daughter of Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, she married first Christopher Hawkes, then an Assistant Keeper at the British Museum, in 1933. From 1953, she was married to J. B. Priestley...
(who worked with the Mallowans in Nimrud
Nimrud
Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located south of Nineveh on the river Tigris in modern Ninawa Governorate Iraq. In ancient times the city was called Kalḫu. The Arabs called the city Nimrud after the Biblical Nimrod, a legendary hunting hero .The city covered an area of around . Ruins of the city...
in the 1950s) to describe the book in a foreword to the 1983 Bodley Head edition as "a pure pleasure to read."
In her 2007 biography of Christie, Laura Thompson writes that the book, "is written to please one person, at least: her husband. It has a slightly manic style, as different as can be from that of her fiction, although in its way the book is equally artful".
Professor Rushbrook Williams in The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
of December 28, 1946 was less impressed: “The enthusiasts of detective fiction who regard the publication of a new “Agatha Christie” as a landmark will experience something of a shock when they turn over these pages. Here is no ingenious plot, no artfully contrived love-interest, no unmasking after satisfying suspense, of the horrid criminal. While those who know something of archaeological work in the Near East, and recognise in Mrs Mallowan’s minor misfortunes and victimizations an echo of their own experiences, will sometimes chuckle as they read, the ordinary person will find the whole thing too long drawn out. The book, indeed, is reminiscent of the ‘letters from dear Uncle William’ types of literature – excellent for reading aloud by those, and to those, who know Uncle William, but a shade tedious to persons outside the family circle.”
Elizabeth Monroe in the November 24, 1946 issue of The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
opined that, "For all its flippancy the book is a contribution to literature on the Middle East. For it contains nostalgic descriptions of the profusion of mounds that mark bygone lives, and of the silence that surrounds them now, and of the flowers that cover them if you arrive on the right morning in the spring."
A review by "H.J.F." in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
s issue of November 22, 1946 stated that the idea of writing the book was, "characteristically bright" and concluded, "The reader need not expect to find anything here about the famous Mallowan excavations which have done so much to fill out the heretofore thin web of the story of the origins of cultivation. That is to be sought in learned journals, and Agatha Christie's part therein is no small one. We wonder how many of the people who enjoy her books think of their being written, as often as not, in the desert amid mounds of forgotten cities in a region that was once full of life."
Publication history
- 1946, William Collins and Sons, November 1946, Hardcover, 192 pp
- 1946, Dodd, Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 225 pp
- 1976, William Collins and Sons (Revised edition), Hardcover, 192 pp
- 1976, Dodd, Mead and Company (New York), Hardcover, 192 pp
- 1977, Pocket BooksPocket BooksPocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
(New York), Paperback, 222 pp - 1983, Bodley Head, Hardcover, 192 pp ISBN 0-37-030563-9
- 1990, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollinsHarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
), August 1990, Paperback, 208 pp ISBN 0-00-637594-4
The photographs contained in later editions are different to those in the 1946 first edition. The latter contains only photographs of the sights of the digs, the workers and the local population. Later editions included photographs of Christie, Max Mallowan and some of the other individuals named in the book.
External links
- Come, Tell Me How You Live at the official Agatha Christie website
- Webpages from the British MuseumBritish MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
on Christie and archaeology with selected quotes from Come, Tell Me How You Live