Arthur Hastings

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Arthur Hastings is a literary character in eight novels and some short stories by Agatha Christie . Hercule Poirot's friend and constant companion functions as the narrative self in all of these works .

Life

He was born around 1887. Before the First World War he was an employee of Lloyd Insurance .

He took part in the First World War as an officer, but not as a career officer, and while on leave from the front, his literary career began in Agatha Christie's first work - The Missing Link in the Chain .

After a long stay in a rest home, he meets Styles, the country residence of his friend John Cavendish, and Poirot, a Belgian who has emigrated to England. Both are already friends at this point, but have not seen each other for a long time.

The next time they appear together in Murder on the Golf Course , the two now live together in London and Hastings works as a secretary for a parliamentarian. In this novel he meets his future wife Dulcie Duveen, with whom he runs a farm in Argentina in later novels. They both have several children in common. But only his daughter Judith plays a role in a novel - in the curtain .

Trivia

Mostly he is called Captain in the German editions , but also Hauptmann in some books . It can be used as the counterpart to Dr. Watson from the Tales of Sherlock Holmes . He is mostly portrayed as a bit dull, but always as a good friend of Poirot.

He is embodied by various actors in film adaptations of Christie's works: in The Murders of Mr ABC from 1965 by Robert Morley and in the television series Agatha Christie's Poirot by Hugh Fraser .

Novels

Individual evidence

  1. The missing link in the chain , Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2nd edition 2011, page 14
  2. ^ The missing link in the chain , Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2nd edition 2011, page 7