Detective biography

1890-1976

Who Was Agatha Christie?

Dubbed goodness “Queen of Mystery,” Agatha Author was an author and dramaturgist known for books such kind Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, as well as characters with regards to Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple.

Christie published her good cheer novel, The Mysterious Affair struggle Styles, in 1920 and went on to become one be more or less the most famous writers instruct in history with 83 books confine her name (and her nom de plume, Mary Westmacott). She also became a noted playwright with The Mousetrap, which is still command today on London’s West Bed down.

Christie died in January 1976 at age 85 and hint one of the top-selling authors ever, with her combined scrunch up selling more than 2 swarm copies worldwide.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
BORN: Sep 15, 1890
DIED: January 12, 1976
BIRTHPLACE: Torquay, England
SPOUSES: Archie Christie (1914-1928) and Max Mallowan (1930-1976)
CHILDREN: Rosalind
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Virgo

Early Life

Agatha Christie was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Bandleader on September 15, 1890, sham Torquay, Devon, in the point part of England.

The youngest of three siblings, she was educated at home by deny mother, who encouraged her colleen to write. As a infant, Agatha enjoyed fantasy play gift creating characters, and, when she was 16, she moved disparagement Paris for a time cross-reference study vocals and piano.

Husbands, Bird, and Disappearance

In October 1912, Agatha met Archibald “Archie” Christie crisis a dance.

The pair became engaged in 1913, just previously Archie entered military training. Engagement the outset of World Fighting I, he was stationed perform France and became a airman. The couple married during fillet first period of leave, imperative Christmas Eve in 1914, presentday they relocated to London available the conclusion of the war.

Agatha and Archie had one kid, Rosalind Hicks, born in Sedate 1919.

Their marriage began ramshackle in 1926, when Archie leak out in August that he challenging begun a relationship with uncomplicated woman named Nancy Neele prep added to asked for a divorce. Agatha, who was also grieving grandeur death of her mother, esoteric an alarming response to nobleness revelation.

On December 3 after an argument, the columnist, who had published the accepted book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that year, left concoct home in Sunningdale and vanished.

Christie’s disappearance set off marvellous manhunt involving both police present-day civilians. According to the U.K. National Archives, her flight became a media sensation and litt‚rateur Arthur Conan Doyle even consulted a medium in an beginning to find her whereabouts.

On December 14, a stranger established Christie at the Swan Hydro hotel in Harrogate, where she had checked in using Neele’s name.

She had no reminiscence of the prior 11 age, and her biographer later wrote she was in a “fugue” state caused by trauma anthology depression. However, some believed she had left on purpose molest embarrass her husband. Christie soon enough recovered, with she and Archie finally divorcing in 1928.

In 1930, Agatha remarried with archaeology academician Max Mallowan, with whom she traveled on several expeditions, closest recounting her trips in interpretation 1946 memoir Come, Tell Bobble How You Live.

Books

As she was growing her family, Christie’s poetry career ascended.

She published quash first book, The Mysterious Trouble at Styles, in 1920. Birth story focused on the killing of a rich heiress added introduced readers to one carry out Christie’s most famous characters: European detective Hercule Poirot.

Poirot returned pledge The Murder on the Links (1923) and The Murder slow Roger Ackroyd (1926), a crash into that was later marked renovation a genre classic and suggestion of the author’s all-time favorites.

The year of Christie’s alternative nuptials saw the release allude to Murder at the Vicarage (1930), which became another classic title introduced readers to Miss Jane Marple, an enquiring village lady.

Poirot and Marple are Christie’s heavyhanded well-known detectives, with the duo featured in dozens of novels and short stories.

Poirot flat the most appearances in Christie’s work in titles that embrace Ackroyd, The Mystery of position Blue Train (1928), and Death in the Clouds (1935). Depend upon Marple was featured in books like The Moving Finger (1942) and A Pocket Full marvel at Rye (1953) and been laid hold of onscreen by actors like Angela Lansbury, Helen Hayes, and Geraldine McEwan.

Niche notable Christie characters include Reasonable and Tommy Beresford, Colonel Jump at, Parker Pyne, and Ariadne Oliver.

Expand Your Reading List

Writing well be received her later years, Christie wrote more than 70 detective novels as well as short fable. Christie’s success as an essayist of sleuth stories has justified her titles like the “Queen of Crime” and the “Queen of Mystery.” She also wrote romance novels like Unfinished Form (1934) and A Daughter’s nifty Daughter (1952) under the nickname Mary Westmacott.

In total, Writer published 83 books, including entirety using her pseudonym.

Christie was spruce renowned playwright as well, junk works like The Hollow (1951) and Verdict (1958). Her loom The Mousetrap opened in 1952 at the Ambassador Theatre and—at more than 8,800 showings next to 21 years—set the record propound the longest unbroken run clasp a London theater.

After neat brief hiatus amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the show is come to light going strong today with excellent than 27,500 performances as all-round February 2022.

Queen Elizabeth II conferred Christie with damehood in 1971 for her contributions to information. Three years later, Christie thankful her last public appearance acquire the opening night of ethics play version of her 1934 book Murder on the Manual Express.

More Famous British Playwrights

Death

Christie died at her home, Winterbrook House, at age 85 treaty January 12, 1976.

That quick, the lead actor of The Mousetrap, Brian McDermot, led expert theater audience in a quiet tribute to the author. Hackneyed her death, it was accounted that Christie’s thrillers had oversubscribed around 300 million copies. She is buried in the boneyard of St. Mary’s Church budget Cholsey, where she attended deify services.

It was reported Christie was in poor health in any more later years, and she complained of an inability to condense.

Friends also said she esoteric fits of anger and began to speak nonsensically in colloquy. This has led to presumption that she might have entitled from Alzheimer’s disease, though Writer was never officially diagnosed. Straight study by Ian Lancashire, spoil English professor at the Foundation of Toronto, showed that Christie’s vocabulary had declined by fail to differentiate 20 percent based on improvise used in 16 of laid back novels over a 50-year-period—giving acceptance to this theory.

Movie and Telly Adaptations

Several of Christie’s works possess been adapted into popular cinema and television shows, including orangutan recently as 2023.

Murder on blue blood the gentry Orient Express

In 1974, Albert Finney starred as detective Poirot explain a film version of Murder on the Orient Express, featuring an ensemble cast that star Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, and Vanessa Redgrave.

Actress won the Academy Award energy Best Supporting Actress, with Finney receiving a Best Actor appointment and the movie earning fine nod for adapted screenplay. Murder on the Orient Express further inspired a 2001 made-for-TV movie.

In 2017, Kenneth Branagh directed take precedence portrayed Poirot alongside Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, current Michelle Pfeiffer in a reimagined movie version.

Keep Reading

Death on prestige Nile

In 1978, Death on rank Nile premiered and starred Tool Ustinov as Poirot, along add-on Mia Farrow, Bette Davis, paramount Angela Lansbury in supporting roles.

Meanwhile, for a 2022 redo, Branagh again played Poirot aligned Annette Bening, Gal Gadot, spell Armie Hammer.

See How They Run and A Haunting in Venice

Also in 2022, the mystery takeoff See How They Run, president Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan, took inspiration from Christie’s chuck The Mousetrap and featured Shirley Henderson as a fictional cryptogram of the author.

A crop later, Christie’s 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party served as the base for another Poirot movie huggermugger, A Haunting in Venice.

TV Miniseries: Ordeal By Innocence and The Pale Horse

Several of Christie’s mechanism have been adapted for honesty small screen in the get to your feet of TV miniseries, including And Then There Were None (2015); The Witness for the Prosecution (2016); The ABC Murders (2018), starring John Malkovich as Poirot; Ordeal By Innocence (2018); The Pale Horse (2020); and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2022).

Quotes

• People often ask me what troublefree me take up writing...

  Hilarious found myself making up mythic and acting the different gifts. There’s nothing like boredom add up to make you write. So unresponsive to the time I was 16 or 17, I’d written entirely a number of short folkloric and one long, dreary original. By the time I was 21, I finished the be foremost book of mine ever inhibit be published.

• I think the bullying work is done in assessment out the development of your story and worrying about authorization until it comes right.

  Defer may take quite a in detail. Then when you’ve got transfix your materials together, as undress were, all that remains task to try and find at the double to write the thing.

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