Unfinished Portrait (novel)

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Unfinished Portrait (published in 1934) is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Agatha Christie. It is the second of six novels Christie wrote under the nom-de-plume Mary Westmacott.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the midst of divorce, bereft of the only people in her life she cares for, Celia considers taking her life. But, while on an exotic island, Celia meets a successful portrait painter Larraby, who spends a night talking with her, and learning her deepest fears, leaving Celia with the hope that he may be the one to help her come to terms with her past.

[edit] References to Christie's own life

Christie went through a divorce in 1928, which greatly affected her, and many see parts of Celia's character as similar to Christie at the time.

Agatha Christie
Detectives: Hercule PoirotMiss Marple Tommy and Tuppence Ariadne Oliver Arthur Hastings Superintendent Battle Chief Inspector Japp Parker Pyne
Novels: The Mysterious Affair at StylesThe Secret Adversary Murder on the Links The Man in the Brown Suit The Secret of Chimneys The Murder of Roger Ackroyd The Big Four The Mystery of the Blue Train The Seven Dials Mystery The Murder at the Vicarage The Sittaford Mystery Peril at End House Lord Edgware Dies Murder on the Orient Express Three Act Tragedy Why Didn't They Ask Evans? Death in the Clouds The A.B.C. Murders Murder in Mesopotamia Cards on the Table Death on the Nile Dumb Witness Appointment with Death And Then There Were None Murder is Easy Hercule Poirot's Christmas Sad Cypress Evil Under the Sun N or M? One, Two, Buckle My Shoe The Body in the Library Five Little Pigs The Moving Finger Towards Zero Sparkling Cyanide Death Comes as the End The Hollow Taken at the Flood Crooked House A Murder is Announced They Came to Baghdad Mrs McGinty's Dead They Do It with Mirrors A Pocket Full of Rye After the Funeral Hickory Dickory Dock Destination Unknown Dead Man's Folly 4.50 From Paddington Ordeal by Innocence Cat Among the Pigeons The Pale Horse The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side The Clocks A Caribbean Mystery At Bertram's Hotel Third Girl Endless Night By the Pricking of My Thumbs Hallowe'en Party Passenger to Frankfurt Nemesis Elephants Can Remember Postern of Fate Curtain Sleeping Murder
As Mary Westmacott: Giant's BreadUnfinished Portrait Absent in the Spring The Rose and the Yew Tree A Daughter's a Daughter The Burden
Short story collections: Poirot InvestigatesPartners in Crime The Mysterious Mr. Quin The Hound of Death The Thirteen Problems Parker Pyne Investigates The Listerdale Mystery Murder in the Mews The Regatta Mystery The Labours of Hercules Poirot's Early Cases The Harlequin Tea Set
Plays: AkhnatonThe Mousetrap Witness for the Prosecution Verdict Rule of Three Fiddlers Three
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