Agatha Christie
The Queen of Crime
(1890 - 1976)

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language with anothr billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold by only the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 78 crime novels, 19 plays - of which 7 are adaptations of her novels - and 6 novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Agatha Miller was born in Torquay of an English mother and an American father. She married Archie Christie, then a captain in the Royal Flying Corps, in 1914. In 1919 their daughter Rosalind, was born.

Agatha Christie's first novel was written in response to a challenge by her sister, who said: 'I bet you can't write a good detective story.' She did - and The Mysterious Affair at Sytles was the result written towards the end of the First World War, in which she served as a VAD. In it she created Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective with the egg-shaped head and the passion for order, not to mention the little grey cells, who was destined to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It was rejected by several publishers and eventually accepted by The Bodley Head, and published in 1920.

She soon began to make a name for herself, and in 1926, after averaging a book a year, she wrote what is still considered her masterpiece, The murder of Roger Ackroyd. The Murder of Roger Acknroyd was also the first of Agatha Christie's books to be dramatised - under the name Alibi - and to have a successful run in the West End where it gave Charles Laughton, in the role of Poirot, one of his first leading parts in the London theatre.

In 1930 Agatha Christie was married for a second time - to the archaeologist Max Mallowan - and began a life of great personal happiness. The same year marked the publication of Murder at the Viccarage, in which the deceptively mild Miss Jane Marple was introduced.

The Mousetrap, Agatha Christie's most famous play of all, frist appeared on the radio as Three Blind Mice, commissioned by the BBC as a birthday treat for Queen Mary in 1947. It is now the longest-running play in history since its West End debut in 1952. Much Agatha Christie's work has been filmed. The most famous films include Rene Clair's And Then There Were None, Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution and Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express. Most recent TV series include LWT's enormously popular Agatha Christie's Poirot with David Succhet and the equally popuplar Miss Marple series from the BBC, starring Joan Hickson.

Agatha Christie was awarded the CBE in 1956 and was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1971. Her last two books to be published were Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, in 1975, and Sleeping Murder, featuring Miss Marple, in 1976. Both were bestsellers. In addition to her detective novels and short stories, Agatha Christie also wrote four non-fiction works including an autobiography and the delightful Come, Tell Me How You Live, which celebrates the many archaeological expeditions she shared with her husband in the Middle East and which she wrote under the name of Agatha Christie Mallowan.

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