Captain Hastings
| Arthur Hastings | |
|---|---|
Hugh Fraser as Hastings
|
|
| First appearance | The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
| Last appearance | Curtain |
| Created by | Agatha Christie |
| Portrayed by | Hugh Fraser |
| Information | |
| Occupation | Army Captain (ex), secretary, rancher |
| Spouse(s) | Dulcie Duveen (m. 1923); her death |
| Children | Two daughters Grace Judith |
| Relatives | A sister Two grandsons |
| Religion | Anglicanism |
| Nationality |
 British
|
| Birth date and place | abt. 1886 (30 in 1916) United Kingdom |
Captain Arthur J. M. Hastings, OBE, is a fictional character created by Agatha Christie as the companion-chronicler and best friend of the Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. He is first introduced in Christie's 1920 novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles and appears as a character in eight other Poirot novels and plays, in addition to being the narrator of several others.
Hastings is today strongly associated with Poirot, due more to the changes in the television adaptations compared to the novels. Many of the early TV episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot were adaptations of short stories, in most of which he appeared in print. A few were stories into which he had been adapted (e.g. Murder in the Mews). In Christie's original writings, however, Hastings is not in every short story or novel. He is not a character in either Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express, the two best-known Poirot novels. Of the twenty-two Poirot novels published between 1920 and 1937, he appears in seven. Moreover, when Christie expanded The Submarine Plans (1923) as The Incredible Theft (1937), she removed Hastings.
Hastings appears to have been introduced by Christie in accordance with the model of Sherlock Holmes's associate, Doctor Watson, to whom he bears a marked resemblance. Both narrate in the first person, both are slow to see the significance of clues, and both stand as a form of surrogate for the reader. There are even similarities of role: Hastings is Poirot's only close friend and the two share a flat briefly when Poirot sets up his detective agency. Hastings also has a military background in the colonial Middle East. The presence of Chief Inspector Japp, a close "literary descendant" of Holmes's Inspector Lestrade, fleshed out Christie's adoption of the Holmes paradigm.
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