Christie's disappearance featured at new exhibition

The only known surviving copy of a missing persons poster produced by police after Agatha Christie disappeared in 1926 is one of the items on display at a new exhibition.

The celebrated crime writer went missing from her Sunningdale home, Styles, on 3 December 1926. Her car was found in the Surrey countryside a day later and she was found at a hotel in Harrogate on 14 December.

It is now thought she had a breakdown after her husband announced he was leaving her for another woman.

The poster made by police in Wokingham forms part of a free exhibition at the Royal Berkshire Archives in Reading that runs until 18 December.

The display features items owned by private collector Gale Goddard and from the archives.

Goddard's items include the only replica of the bust of Christie displayed in her hometown, Torquay, and oil paintings of the writer by artist Sylvia Berger.

The exhibition will tell the story of Christie's life, drawing on her experiences as a nurse during World War One and her accompanying her second husband, Max Mallowan, on archaeological digs in modern day Iraq.

The pair married in 1930 and lived together at Winterbrook House, near Wallingford, for decades until she died in 1976.

They are buried together in the churchyard of St Mary's in Cholsey.

Christie is listed by Guinness World Records as "the world's best-selling fiction writer", with 78 crime novels thought to have sold an estimated two billion copies in 44 languages.

County archivist Mark Stevens said: "Berkshire old and new ran through Dame Agatha's life – from Styles in Sunningdale to Winterbrook House in Wallingford.

"We're delighted that Gale Goddard has chosen the county for this final display of her fabulous collection and look forward to welcoming fans to see it."