Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie (1890-1976), British author of mystery novels and short stories, especially famous as the creator of Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective, and Miss Jane Marple.
She was born in Torquay, in the county of Devon, as the daughter of Frederick Alvah Miller and Clarissa Miller. Her father died when she was a child. Christie was educated at home, where her mother encouraged her to write from a very early age. At sixteen she was sent to school in Paris where she studied singing and piano.
In 1914 Christie married Archibald Christie, an officer in the Flying Royal Corps; their daughter, Rosalind, was born in 1919.
Christie's first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introduced Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective, who appeared in more than 40 books, the last of which was Curtain (1975).
Christie's other famous detective, Miss Marple, an elderly spinster, was a typical English character, but while Poirot used logic and rational methods, Marple relied on her feminine sensitivity and empathy to solve crimes. Marple was featured in 17 novels, the first being Murder At The Vicarage (1930) and the last Sleeping Murder (1977).
Both Poirot and Marple have been adapted for film and television.
In 56 years Christie wrote 66 detective novels, among the best of which are The Murder of Roger Acroyd, Murder On The Orient Express (1934), Death On The Nile (1937) and Ten Little Niggers (1939).
In addition to these works, Christie wrote her autobiography (1977), and several plays, including The Mousetrap, which ran more than 30 years continuously in London.
Christie's marriage broke up in 1926. Archie Christie, who worked in the City, announced that he had fallen in love with a younger woman, Nancy Neele. In the same year Christie's beloved mother died. The story of Christie's real life adventure in the 1926, when she disappeared for a time and lived in a Harrowgate hotel under the name Mrs. Neele, was the basis for the film Agatha.
Christie's divorce was finalized in 1928, and two years later she married the archaeologist Max Mallowan. She had met him on her travels in Near East in 1927, and accompanied him on his excavations of sites in Syria and Iraq. Later Christie used these exotic settings in her novels Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) and Death on the Nile (1937). Her own archeological adventures were recounted in Come tell me how you live (1946). Mallowan was Catholic and fourteen years her junior; he became one of the most prominent archaeologist of his generation. Of her marriage the writer told reporters: "An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her." Mallowan worked in Iraq in the 1950s but returnmed to England, when Christie's health grew weaker. His most famous book was Nimrud and its Remains.
During World War II Christie worked in the dispensary of University College Hospital in London. After the war she continued to write prolifically, also gaining success on the stage and in the cinema. Witness for the Prosecution, for example, was chosen the best foreign play of the 1954-55 season by the New York Drama Critics Circle.
Christie's characters are usually well-to-do people. Often the comfortable lifestyle of her characters is undermined by financial problems, which lead to murder. Although her villains use very complicated plans, they are not impossible, but are firmly grounded on the everyday reality. In many stories the reader is fooled to suspect an innocent character, but most innovative Christie was when she revealed the guilty party: it has been the narrator, a group of people, a serial killer who tries to hide an obvious motive for his killing one of the victims, and so forth.
Christie's world view was conservative and rational, but there is always a place for accidents. Christie gives always a logical explanation for crimes, but society is not blamed. Murder is not a sign of degeneration of middle-class values. After the crime is solved, life continues happily.
In 1967 Christie became president of the British Detection Club, and in 1971 she was made a Dame of the British Empire.
Among the many film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974), directed by Sidney Lument and with Albert Finney as Poirot, and Death on the Nile (1978), with Peter Ustinov as Poirot. Both films were nostalgic costume dramas.
Christie died on January 12, 1976.
With over one hundred novels and 103 translations into foreign languages, Christie was by the time of her death the best-selling English novelist of all time.
| Collections |
The Road of Dreams (poems)(1924)
The Hound of Death (1933)
The Sunningdale Mystery (1933)
The Listerdale Mystery (1934)
The Mousetrap (1950)
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960)
The Golden Ball: And Other Stories (1972)
Poems (poems) (1973)
Miss Marple's Final Cases (1979)
The Mousetrap and Other Plays (1981)
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories (1985)
The Mysterious Affair at Styles and the Secret Adversary (1988)
The Harlequin Tea Set: And Other Stories (1997)
Bound to Talk (2002)
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| Non Fiction |
An Autobiography (1977)
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| Novels |
The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)
Giant's Bread (1930) (As Mary Westmacott)
The Sittaford Mystery (1931)
Unfinished Portrait (1934) (As Mary Westmacott)
Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1935)
And then there were None or Ten Little Niggers or Ten Little Indians (1939)
Murder Is Easy or Easy to Kill (1939)
Absent in the Spring (1944) (As Mary Westmacott)
Death Comes as the End (1944)
Sparkling Cyanide or Remembered Death (1944)
The Rose and the Yew Tree (1948) (As Mary Westmacott)
Crooked House (1949)
They Came to Baghdad (1951)
A Daughter's a Daughter (1952) (As Mary Westmacott)
Destination Unknown or So Many Steps to Death (1954)
The Burden (1956) (As Mary Westmacott)
Ordeal by Innocence (1958)
The Pale Horse (1961)
Endless Night (1967)
Passenger to Frankfurt (1970)
Black Coffee (1998)
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| Series |
Hercule Poirot
1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
2. The Murder on the Links (1923)
3. Poirot Investigates (1924)
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
5. The Big Four (1927)
6. The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
7. Peril at End House (1932)
8. Lord Edgware Dies (1933) or Thirteen at Dinner
9. Murder on the Orient Express (1934) or Murder in the Calais Coach
10. Three Act Tragedy (1934) or Murder in Three Acts
11. Death in the Clouds (1935) or Death in the Air
12. The ABC Murders (1936)
13. Cards on the Table (1936)
14. Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
15. Death on the Nile (1937)
16. Dumb Witness (1937) or Poirot Loses a Client
17. Murder in the Mews (1937) or Dead Man's Mirror
18. Appointment with Death (1938)
19. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938) or A Holiday for Murder/Murder for Christmas
20. Sad Cypress (1940)
21. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940) or An Overdose of Death/The Patriotic Murders
22. Evil Under the Sun (1941)
23. Five Little Pigs (1942) or Murder in Retrospect
24. The Hollow (1946) or Murder after Hours
25. The Labours of Hercules (1947)
26. Taken at the Flood (1948) or There Is a Tide
27. Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952) or Blood Will Tell
28. After the Funeral (1953) or Funerals Are Fatal
29. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
30. Dead Man's Folly (1956)
31. Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
32. The Clocks (1963)
33. Third Girl (1966)
34. Hallowe'en Party (1969)
35. Elephants Can Remember (1972)
36. Poirot's Early Cases (1974) or Hercule Poirot's Early Cases
37. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (1975)
The Complete Battles of Hastings Volume 1 (2004)
The French Collection (2004)
Tommy and Tuppence
1. The Secret Adversary (1922)
2. Partners in Crime (1929)
3. N or M? (1941)
4. By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968)
5. Postern of Fate (1973)
Superintendent Battle
1. The Secret of Chimneys (1925)
2. The Seven Dials Mystery (1929)
3. Towards Zero (1944)
Miss Marple
1. The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
2. The Thirteen Problems (1932) or The Tuesday Club Murders
3. The Body in the Library (1942)
4. The Moving Finger (1943)
5. A Murder Is Announced (1950)
6. They Do It with Mirrors (1952) or Murder with Mirrors
7. A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)
8. 4.50 from Paddington (1957) or What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw
9. The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1962) or The Mirror Crack'd
10. A Caribbean Mystery (1964)
11. At Bertram's Hotel (1965)
12. Nemesis (1971)
13. Sleeping Murder (1976)
Quin and Satterthwaite
1. The Mysterious Mr Quin (1930)
2. Love Detectives: The Complete Quin and Satterthwaite (2004)
Parker Pyne
1. Parker Pyne Investigates (1934) or Mr. Parker Pyne: Detective
2. Private Eye: The Complete Parker Pyne (2004)
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| Short Stories |
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook (1923)
The Adventure of the Cheap Flat (1924)
The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb (1924)
The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman (1924)
The Adventure of 'The Western Star' (1924)
The Case of the Missing Will (1924)
The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim (1924)
The Hound of Death (1924)
The Jewel Robbery at the 'Grand Metropolitan' (1924)
The Kidnapped Prime Minister (1924)
The Lamp (1924)
The Million Dollar Bond Robbery (1924)
The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge (1924)
The Tragedy of Marsdon Manor (1924)
The Under Dog (1929)
At the 'Bells and Motley' (1930)
The Bird with the Broken Wing (1930)
The Coming of Mr Quin (1930)
The Dead Harlequin (1930)
The Face of Helen (1930)
Harlequin's Lane (1930)
The Man from the Sea (1930)
The Shadow on the Glass (1930)
The Sign in the Sky (1930)
The Soul of the Croupier (1930)
The Voice in the Dark (1930)
The World's End (1930)
The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael (1933)
Accident
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
The Affair at the Bungalow
The Apples of the Hesperides
The Arcadian Deer
The Augean Stables
The Bloodstained Pavement
The Blue Geranium
The Call of Wings
The Capture of Cerberus
The Case of the Caretaker
The Case of the City Clerk
The Case of the Discontented Soldier
The Case of the Discontented Husband
The Case of the Distressed Lady
The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife
The Case of the Perfect Maid
The Case of the Rich Woman
A Christmas Tragedy
The Companion
The Cretan Bull
Dead Man's Mirror
Death By Drowning
Death on the Nile
The Dream
The Dressmaker's Doll
The Erymanthian Boar
The Flock of Geryon
The Four Suspects
Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds
The Fourth Man
A Fruitful Sunday
The Gate of Baghdad
The Gipsy
The Girdle of Hyppolita
The Girl in the Train
The Golden Ball
Greenshaw's Folly
The Gypsy
Have You Got Everything You Want?
The Herb of Death
The Horses of Diomedes
The House at Shiraz
The Idol House of Astarte
In a Glass Darkly
The Incredible Theft
Ingots of Gold
Jane in Search of a Job
The Last Seance
The Lernean Hydra
The Listerdale Mystery
The Manhood of Edward Robinson
Miss Marple Tells a Story
Motive v Opportunity
Mr Eastwood's Adventure
Murder in the Mews
The Mystery of the Blue Jar
The Mystery of the Spanish Chest
The Nemean Lion
The Oracle at Delphi
The Pearl of Price
Philomel Cottage
The Rajah's Emerald
The Red Signal
Sanctuary
Sing a Song of Sixpence
SOS
Srtrange Jest
The Stymphalean Birds
Swan Song
Tape-Measure Murder
The Thumb-Mark of St Peter
Triangle at Rhodes
The Tuesday Night Club
Wireless
The Witness for the Prosecution
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