A remarkable archive relating to crime writer Dame Agatha Christie which includes candid letters has emerged for sale by a Sussex vendor for £50,000, Sussex Live reports.
The treasure trove, according to the report, also features dozens of first edition books she inscribed, her gold-mounted fountain pen, various pieces of furniture and a mysterious Valentine’s Day card.
Many of Christie’s prized possessions have come from her holiday home, Greenway in Brixham, Devon.
In the series of letters, the Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot creator opines about all manner of subjects including her incompetent housemaid and critics who reveal the plots of her murder-mystery novels.
She also dispensed various pearls of wisdom to the recipient, including that a ‘happy home’ was better for children than wealth or material possessions such as ‘ponies and toys’.
In a letter written in 1967, Christie, who has sold 2.5 billion books, confides in her former housekeeper Jane Elliot that she knows ‘the bad effects of a broken home’.
The then 77-year-old, wrote: “I am more sure than ever today that it is the children of a marriage that matters more than anything else. To feel loved and belonging gives security and a foundation to life which they need to have & ought to have.
“I hope this doesn’t sound too much of a sermon – I didn’t mean it to – but I have known in my own life the bad effects a broken home can have – & in many other lives I have known. A happy home means more to a child than material advantage, education, ponies, toys or any of these things.”
