Come, Tell Me How You Live
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Archaeology, Travel |
| Genre | Autobiography Travel literature |
| Publisher | William Collins |
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Publication date
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November 1946 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 192 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| Preceded by | The Hollow |
| Followed by | The Labours of Hercules |
Come, Tell Me How You Live is a short book of autobiography and travel literature by crime writer Agatha Christie. It is one of only two books she wrote and had published under both of her married names of "Christie" and "Mallowan" (the other being Star Over Bethlehem and other stories) and was first published in the UK in November 1946 by William Collins and Sons and in the same year in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company. The UK edition retailed for ten shillings and sixpence (10/6) and the US edition at $3.00.
The book's title, a quote from verse three of the White Knight's poem, Haddocks' Eyes from chapter eight of Through the Looking-Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll, is also word play on the word "Tell", used to describe an archaeological mound or site.
Christie first thought of writing the book in 1938 and wrote to her literary agent, Edmund Cork, in July of that year, suggesting the project and telling him that it would be "not at all serious or archaeological". In the event, she wrote the book during the Second World War after her husband, Max Mallowan, had been posted to Egypt with the British Council in February 1942 and she was living alone in London. She occupied her hours by working in a hospital dispensary, using the knowledge she had gained doing the same job in the First World War working two full days, three half-days and alternate Saturday mornings and, "The rest of the time, I wrote."
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