Agatha Christie vs Arthur Conan Doyle
A debate that has run for decades is ‘who is better between Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle?’
The phrase ‘Agatha Christie vs Arthur Conan Doyle’ has divided crime novel readers into two groups, the lovers of Christie and the lovers of Doyle.
Personally speaking, this debate has all subjective answers.
In this post, you will find a short analysis of Christie’s works and Arthur Conan Doyle’s works depending on which you can make a decision ‘who is better’.
Read More : 101 Agatha Christie Quotes that fill your heart with bliss
The nature of the story
When you read an Agatha Christie novel, examples include - The Murder on the Orient Express, Five Little Pigs, Peril at the End House, you find that Christie has a special talent for storytelling.
Agatha Christie creates a detective world and slowly pulls you in, without you even knowing.
She makes you a part of the investigation by engaging you in finding the reason for the committed crime.
You feel like an accomplice of Hercule Poirot.
Hercule Poirot believes in talking to the people connected with the crime and analyzing their psychology.
This way Christie puts forth a lot of clues to the reader throughout the story and in the end, when the killer is revealed, you’re stumped thinking ‘How could I not think of that?’
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing is more crime drama than a thriller. His writing is concise in that the clues related to mystery solving are not presented to the reader.
Doyle’s focus, in his stories, is more on the methods used. You read about how the crime is committed and how Sherlock Holmes unravels the mystery behind it.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing takes you on an adventure ride, in which you’re kept in dark, and in the end, all the information is revealed, a lot of which remains hidden throughout the story.
One has written whodunits, the other has not
If you like whodunits then you will like Agatha Christie’s novels more because in each of her novels the killer is revealed at the end.
The best part is you get to know the killer right from the start, but are unaware that he or she has indeed committed the crime.
Because Christie’s novels are whodunits which is why some people say that her plots are repetitive or Christie’s writing is formula-based. I strongly disagree with them.
Each of Agatha Christie’s novels has new plots, different settings, different backdrops, and involves characters of diverse stature.
Sherlock Holmes stories won’t fall in the category of whodunits.
Arthur Conan Doyle has even revealed killers at the beginning of some of his stories and then the story till the killer is caught is revealed.
In one of his famous stories, Sherlock Holmes deduces that the crime was not even committed but the victim himself framed his own murderer to take revenge against the accused.
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