Quotations
Every murderer is probably somebodys old friend. ~ Hercule Poirot
I am not keeping back facts. Every fact that I know is in your possession. You can draw your own deductions from them. ~ Hercule Poirot
I did not deceive you, mon ami. At most, I permitted you to deceive yourself. ~ Hercule Poirot
I have always been so sure — too sure... But now I am very humble and I say like a little child: I do not know... ~ Hercule Poirot
I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.
It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.
ibid.
More Quotes >>
Encyclopedia
Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan,
DBE , also known as
Dame Agatha Christie, was an
English crime fiction writer. She also wrote romances under the name
Mary Westmacott, but is remembered for her 80 mystery novels, particularly featuring detectives
Hercule Poirot or
Miss Marple, which have given her the title the 'Queen of Crime' and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the mystery novel.
Her appeal is so huge that Christie is often called - by the
Guinness Book of World Records, among others - the best-selling writer of fiction of all time, and the best-selling writer of any kind second to
William Shakespeare. An estimated billion copies of her novels have been sold in English, and another billion in 103 other languages. The only writing ever to have outsold her books is William Shakespeare and the Bible! .
As an example of her broad appeal, she is the all-time best-selling author in France, with over 40 million copies sold in
French versus 22 million for
Emile Zola, the nearest contender.
Her
stage play The Mousetrap is a play [i] by Agatha Christie [i] that started off as a short radio play called T ...
holds the record for the longest run ever in London, opening at the Ambassadors Theatre on November 25, 1952, and as of 2006 is still running after more than 20,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the
Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, the
Grand Master Award, and in the same year,
Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA, for Best Play. Most of her books and short stories have been filmed, some many times over , and most have also been adapted for television and radio.
Biography
Agatha Christie was born in
Torquay,
Devon, to an
American father and a
British mother. She never claimed or held U.S. citizenship.
Her first marriage, an unhappy one, was in 1914 to Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the
Royal Flying Corps. The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks, and divorced in 1928.
During
World War I she worked at a hospital and then a pharmacy, a job that also influenced her work: many of the murders in her books are carried out with
poison.
In December 1926 she disappeared for several days, causing quite a storm in the press. Her car was found in a chalk pit. She was eventually found staying at a hotel in Harrogate, where she claimed to have suffered amnesia due to a
nervous breakdown following the death of her mother and her husband's confessed infidelity. Opinions are still divided as to whether this was a
publicity stunt or not. A 1979 film,
Agatha, starring
Vanessa Redgrave as Christie, recounted a fictionalised version of the disappearance. Other media accounts of this event exist; it was featured on a segment of
Paul Harvey's
The Rest of the Story, for example.
In 1930, Christie married a
Roman Catholic , the
archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. Mallowan was 14 years younger than Agatha, and her travels with him contributed background to several of her novels set in the
Middle East. Their marriage was happy in the early years, and endured despite Mallowan's many affairs in later life, notably with Barbara Parker, whom he married in 1977, the year after Agatha's death. Other novels were set in and around
Torquay,
Devon, where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel,
Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Pera Palas
hotel in
Istanbul,
Turkey, the southern terminus of the railroad. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author.
In 1971 she was created a
Dame Commander of the British Empire.
Agatha Christie died on January 12, 1976, at age 85 from natural causes, at Winterbrook House, Cholsey near
Wallingford,
Oxfordshire. She is buried at St. Mary's Churchyard in Cholsey, Oxon.
Christie's only child, Rosalind Hicks, died on October 28, 2004, also aged 85, from natural causes. Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, now owns the royalties to his grandmother's works.
At the height of her career, Christie wrote two novels that she intended to be published after her death. They were the last cases of her two great detectives,
Hercule Poirot and
Jane Marple - respectively,
Curtain and
Sleeping Murder. When she wrote the novels, Christie had not thought she would live so long. Following the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974, Christie authorised the release of
Curtain, in which Poirot is killed off.
In her diary, Christie explained that she had always found him insufferable. She had a great fondness for
Miss Marple, on the other hand, who was apparently based on Christie's grandmother. After Miss Marple solves the mystery in
Sleeping Murder, she returns home to her regular life in Saint Mary Mead.
Upon seeing the great success of
Curtain, Christie didn't give permission to release
Sleeping Murder sometime in 1975, but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. That may explain some of the inconsistencies of the book with the rest of the Marple series - for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend, Dolly, whose library had the body in it in 1942, is still alive and well in
Sleeping Murder despite the fact he is noted as having died, in books that were written after but published before the posthumous release of
Sleeping Murder in 1976. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died.
Works
Novels
...
- 1925 The Secret of Chimneys
- 1926 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
- 1927 The Big Four
- 1928 The Mystery of the Blue Train
- 1929 The Seven Dials Mystery
- 1930 The Murder at the Vicarage
- 1931 The Sittaford Mystery
- 1932 Peril at End House is a whodunnit [i] mystery novel by Agatha Christie [i], featuring her famous cha ...
- 1933 Lord Edgware Dies
- 1934 Murder on the Orient Express
- 1935 Three Act Tragedy
- 1935 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, also known as The Boomerang Clue, is a murder mystery [i] novel [i] ...
- 1935 Death in the Clouds is a novel [i] by Agatha Christie [i]. ...
- 1936 The A.B.C. Murders is a detective novel [i] by Agatha Christie [i] featuring Hercule Poirot [i] ...
- 1936 Murder in Mesopotamia is a detective novel [i] by Agatha Christie [i]. ...
- 1936 Cards on the Table is a whodunit [i] mystery novel [i] by Agatha Christie [i]. ...
- 1937 Death on the Nile is a mystery novel [i] by Agatha Christie [i] published in 1936 [i] featuring the ...
- 1937 Dumb Witness is an Agatha Christie [i] mystery novel [i] featuring the Belgian [i] detective [i]...
- 1938 Appointment with Death is a crime novel [i] written by Agatha Christie [i] featuring her Belgian [i] ...
- 1939 And Then There Were None is a detective novel [i] by Agatha Christie [i] first pu ...
- 1939 Murder is Easy
- 1939 Hercule Poirot's Christmas
- 1940 Sad Cypress
- 1941 Evil Under the Sun
- 1941 N or M?
- 1941 One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
- 1942 The Body in the Library
- 1942 Five Little Pigs
- 1942 The Moving Finger
- 1944 Towards Zero
- 1944 Sparkling Cyanide
- 1945 Death Comes as the End
- 1946 The Hollow
- 1948 Taken at the Flood
- 1949 Crooked House
- 1950 A Murder is Announced
- 1951 They Came to Baghdad
- 1952 Mrs McGinty's Dead
- 1952 They Do It with Mirrors
- 1953 A Pocket Full of Rye
- 1953 After the Funeral
- 1955 Hickory Dickory Dock
- 1955 Destination Unknown
- 1956 Dead Man's Folly
- 1957 4.50 From Paddington
- 1957 Ordeal by Innocence
- 1959 Cat Among the Pigeons
- 1961 The Pale Horse
- 1962 The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
- 1963 The Clocks
- 1964 A Caribbean Mystery
- 1965 At Bertram's Hotel
- 1966 Third Girl
- 1967 Endless Night
- 1968 By the Pricking of My Thumbs
- 1969 Hallowe'en Party
- 1970 Passenger to Frankfurt
- 1971 Nemesis
- 1972 Elephants Can Remember
- 1973 Akhnaton - A play in three acts
- 1973 Postern of Fate
- 1975 Curtain
- 1976 Sleeping Murder
Collections of Short Stories
...
Murder in the Mews
1939 Regatta Mystery and Other Stories 1947 The Labours of Hercules
1948 The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories 1950 Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
1951 The Under Dog and Other Stories
1960 The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
1961 Double Sin and Other Stories
1971 The Golden Ball and Other Stories
1974 Poirot's Early Cases
1979 Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories
1992 Problem at Pollensa Bay
1997 The Harlequin Tea Set
Co-authored works
Behind The Screen
written together with Hugh Walpole, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, E. C. Bentley and Ronald Knox of the Detection Club. Published in 1983 in The Scoop and Behind The Screen
.
The Scoop
written together with Dorothy L. Sayers, E. C. Bentley, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts and Clemence Dane of the Detection Club. Published in 1983 in The Scoop and Behind The Screen
.
The Floating Admiral written together with G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers and certain other members of the Detection Club.
Plays adapted into novels by Charles Osborne
Black Coffee
2001 The Unexpected Guest
2003 The Spider's Web
Works written as Mary Westmacott
Giant's Bread
1934 Unfinished Portrait
1944 Absent in the Spring
1948 The Rose and the Yew Tree
1952 A Daughter's a Daughter
1956 The Burden
Plays
Alibi
1930 Black Coffee
1936 Love from a Stranger
1937 or 1939 A Daughter's a Daughter
1940 Peril at End House 1943 Ten Little Indians 1945 Appointment with Death 1946 Murder on the Nile/Hiddon Horizon
1949 Murder at the Vicarage
1951 The Hollow 1952 The Mousetrap 1953 Witness for the Prosecution
1954 The Spider's Web
1956 Towards Zero
1958 Verdict
1958 The Unexpected Guest
1960 Go Back for Murder
1962 Rule of Three
1972 Fiddler's Three
1973 Aknaton
1977 Murder is Announced
1981 Cards on the Table 1992 Problem at Pollensa Bay
1993 Murder is Easy
2005 And Then There Were None
Radio Plays
The Yellow Iris
1947 Three Blind Mice 1948 Butter In a Lordly Dish
1960 Personal Call
Television Plays
Wasp's Nest
Movie Adaptations
Agatha Christie is no stranger to the cinema. Over the last 78 years, Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, Mr. Quin, Parker Pyne, and many others have been portrayed on numerous occasions:
Die Abenteuer G.m.b.H.
1928 The Passing of Mr. Quinn
1931 Alibi
1931 Black Coffee
1934 Lord Edgware Dies
1937 Love From A Stranger
1945 And Then There Were None 1947 Love From A Stranger
1957 Witness for the Prosecution
1960 The Spider's Web
1962 Murder, She Said
1963 Murder at the Gallop
1964 Murder Most Foul
1964 Murder Ahoy!
1966 Ten Little Indians 1966 The Alphabet Murders
1972 Endless Night
1974 Murder on the Orient Express
1975 Ten Little Indians 1978 Death on the Nile 1980 The Mirror Crack'd
1982 Evil Under the Sun 1984 Ordeal by Innocence
1988 Appointment with Death 1989 Ten Little Indians
Television
Love from a Stranger
1947 Love from a Stranger
1949 Ten Little Indians 1959 Ten Little Indians 1970 Murder at the Vicarage
1980 Why Didn't They Ask Evans? 1982 The Spider's Web
1982 The Seven Dials Mystery
1982 The Agatha Christie Hour
1982 Murder is Easy
1982 The Witness for the Prosecution 1983 Partners in Crime
1983 A Caribbean Mystery 1983 Sparkling Cyanide
1984 The Body in the Library
1985 Murder With Mirrors
1985 The Moving Finger
1985 A Murder Is Announced
1985 A Pocket Full of Rye
1985 Thirteen At Dinner
1986 Dead Man's Folly 1986 Murder in Three Acts 1986 Murder at the Vicarage 1987 Sleeping Murder 1987 At Bertram's Hotel 1987 Nemesis 1987 4.50 From Paddington, is a mystery [i], detective novel [i] by Agatha Christie [i]. ...
1989 The Man In The Brown Suit is a detective fiction [i] novel [i] by Agatha Christie [i].
...
Video games
Published by Spinnaker Software and Telarium
Murder On The Orient Express is the latest game from the people that brought you And Then There Were None and has a release: To be announced. Word is that Lee Sheldon the writer is also signed on to bring this latest Agatha Christie novel to life.
UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL
Snow Upon the Desert
The Greenshore Folly
Personal Call
Butter in a Lordly Dish
The Green Gate
The War Bride
The Woman and the Kenite
Stronger than Death
Animation
In 2004, the Japanese broadcasting company
Nippon Housou Kyoukai turned Poirot and Marple into animated characters in the
anime series
Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, introducing Mabel West and her duck Oliver as new characters.
Agatha Christie in fiction
Dame Agatha appears as one of the title characters, with
Dorothy L. Sayers, in the fictional murder mystery
Dorothy and Agatha by
Gaylord Larsen.
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley contains characters based on Christie, Sayers,
Carr, and Chesterton.
The movie
Agatha is about a fictional solution to the real mystery of Agatha Christie's disappearance in 1926.
See also
- The Agatha Christie disappearance
References
External links
- first editions - illustrated
- *
- Agatha Christie Works List
- A Comprehensive guide to the life and work of Agatha Christie
- Simplified Chinese
- Regularly updated news and articles from the world of Agatha Christie.
