Agatha's Borrowed Titles Trivia Quiz

Answer: Julius Caesar (Shakespeare)

"Taken at the Flood" was first published in March 1948 in the U.S. under the title "There is a Tide". It was subsequently published in the U.K. later that year, in November, under Agatha Christie's original title, "Taken at the Flood". Both titles reflect the theme of acting upon a momentary opportunity to change one's fortune.

The titles come from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in a speech by Brutus in Act IV:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune".

The full speech is an epigraph at the beginning of the novel.

Answer: Revelation (Bible)

"The Pale Horse" is unique in that it is the only novel which features Ariadne Oliver alone, without Hercule Poirot.

The title comes from the New Testament's book of Revelation 6:8 - "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him" (KJV).

The biblical allusion sets an ominous and supernatural tone for the story, which features alleged witches performing rituals to cause the deaths of their victims. The "pale horse" represents the cold, detached nature of their deaths, not by witchcraft but by an organisation that commits murders for profit.

Answer: Auguries of Innocence (poem)

"Auguries of Innocence" is a poem by William Blake (1757-1827), an English Poet. Agatha Christie's title, "Endless Night", is derived from the poem's lines:

"Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night."

It directly mirrors the two main characters' qualities: Ellie is born to "sweet delight" (kindness and innocence), while Michael is born to "endless night" (misery and evil).

Answer: MacBeth (Shakespeare)

Agatha Christie took the title of "By the Pricking of My Thumbs" from Act 4, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare's Macbeth.

"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes".

The line is spoken by the Second Witch as she senses Macbeth's approach, indicating a foreboding of evil. The title is a reference to Tuppence Beresford's gut feeling that something is sinister and the unnerving idea that wickedness hides beneath the surface of polite society.

Answer: Ecclesiastes (Bible)

Agatha Christie took the title for her 1941 novel, "Evil Under the Sun", from the Bible, specifically the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes 6:1-2.

The verse reads: "There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men." (KJV)

The significance of the title of this novel is that where there are humans, evil is present; murder is not restricted to gloomy settings but can happen anywhere, even in a seemingly beautiful, sunny paradise.

Answer: The Lady of Shalott (poem)

"The Lady of Shalott" is a ballad and one of the best-known works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, an English poet. It was written in 1832.

Agatha Christie's title comes from the last lines of Part III of the poem:

"The mirror crack'd from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott".

In "The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side", the main character, Marina Gregg, is likened to the Lady of Shalott when she realises the source of her life's tragedy, which in turn shatters her blissful ignorance.

Answer: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (poem)

"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is a famous collection of 11th-century Persian poems translated into English by Edward FitzGerald in 1859. Agatha Christie obtained her title, "The Moving Finger", from the lines of the following verse:

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."

(This is Verse 51 in Fitzgerald's original translation but is now designated Verse 71 in later editions).

The title and theme of this novel refers to the permanent nature of a person's actions and how malicious gossip ("the moving finger") acts as an uncontrollable, destructive force that, once written or communicated, cannot be undone.

Answer: Twelfth Night (Shakespeare)

The title "Sad Cypress" comes from a song from Act II, Scene IV of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night". It appears as an epigraph at the beginning of the novel.

"Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;"

"Sad cypress" refers to a coffin made of cypress wood, reflecting the theme of death - not just the death of certain characters but also the potential death sentence facing the protagonist, Elinor Carlisle, which Poirot works to prevent.

Answer: Sing a Song of Sixpence (nursery rhyme)

"Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie."

Agatha Christie utilised lines from a number of traditional nursery rhymes as titles for her works, including "And Then There Were None", "One, Two Buckle My Shoe", and "Hickory Dickory Dock". Agatha Christie got good value out of the rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence" as she utilised it in the novel "A Pocket Full of Rye" (1953), as well as two short stories - "Sing a Song of Sixpence" (1929) and "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" (1940).

In "A Pocket Full of Rye", the characters and events in the novel correspond to elements of the nursery rhyme.

Answer: Hamlet (Shakespeare)

Agatha Christie borrowed the title of this play, her most famous, from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" Act III. She originally named it "Three Blind Mice" but had to change the title because there was already another play with the same name. In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet stages a play called "The Mousetrap" which re-enacts the murder of his father.

His intention is for his uncle, Claudius, whom Hamlet believes killed his father, to find it so confronting that he will hopefully reveal his guilt. Agatha Christie chose "The Mousetrap" as her new title because of the common theme of setting a trap to catch a killer.