A Memorial Service to Dame Agatha Christie Mallowan [Order of Service and Card]

[CHRISTIE, Agatha] 
A Memorial Service to Dame Agatha Christie Mallowan [Order of Service and Card]
1976  
 
Order of service (8.5” x 5.5”), pp. [viii], stapled; together with a memorial card (6” x 4” approx.), printed on one side only; just a touch of browning and creasing; near-fine. 
 
Dame Agatha Christie passed away peacefully on the 12th January 1976, at the age 85. Upon receiving the news, two West End theatres – St. Martin's, where The Mousetrap was playing, and the Savoy, which was home to a revival of Murder at the Vicarage – dimmed their outside lights in her honour. The funeral itself was a quiet affair, attended by 20 or so reporters, some of whom had travelled from as far away as South America. In a legacy which spanned 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, Christie had become one of the best-loved writers of English Crime fiction, and was sometimes dubbed the "Queen of Crime"—a moniker which is now trademarked by her estate. 
 
On the 13th May 1976, four months after her death, a memorial service was held at Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. A short service, it consisted of three Hymns, Psalm 23, and a reading from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. 
 
Seldom-found ephemeral items.