The queen of crime fiction has published a literary portrait of part of her life under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott
When The Unfinished Portrait was published in 1934 as the second psychological novel by Mary Westmacott, no one knew that the world-famous Agatha Christie was behind the name. Under the cloak of anonymity, she allowed herself to insert a large number of autobiographical elements into this novel, perhaps hoping not to be discovered. More than fifteen years later, she did not avoid this, and the novel can serve as another piece in the mosaic of information about her life, which she was very reluctant to reveal to the public.
Scholars agree that The Unfinished Portrait is more autobiographical than A Biography of Myself. The reason for this, according to them, is not only the possibility to hide behind a literary character and, if necessary, to be able to label the work as fantasy, but also the time gap between the events described in the two books (which may have affected both the accuracy of the memories and the difference in the perception of the events of the time).
If we compare the two books, we find, especially in the depiction of childhood and adolescence, almost identical people and stories (although in Unfinished Portrait the main character has no sister). But from the wedding onwards, the description of events begins to diverge. In Unfinished Portrait, the author reveals the matters covered in the autobiography in more detail, devoting more time to feelings, reflections and actions. It is possible that she needed to cope with the unfortunate events in the way that was closest to her, namely by writing, and so she did not feel the need to return to it later in such detail.
