The original “gone girl,” mystery writer Agatha Christie abandoned her automobile one day in 1926 and vanished without a trace. For 11 days, a large-scale womanhunt fanned across the English countryside, with a thousand police officers and 15,000 volunteers searching for a body, dead or alive. Screaming headlines everywhere expressed concern for her (and provided lurid entertainment). When Christie was discovered alive and living quietly at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Yorkshire, the press and people turned, angered by what they thought was perhaps a publicity stunt–and maybe just a little disappointed subconsciously that the story’s final chapter wouldn’t have the worst possible end. Was it martial discord or amnesia or electroshock therapy or something else that drove the novelist from her life? Nobody really knows. Two Brooklyn Daily Eagle articles follow about the aftermath of the case.

From the December 14, 1926 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

From the December 15, 1926 Brooklyn Daily Eagle: