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Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (September 
15, 1890–January 12, 1976), was a British crime 
fiction writer. She also wrote romances under the 
name Mary Westmacott.

Agatha Christie is the world's best-known mystery 
writer and all-time best selling author of any 
genre other than William Shakespeare. Her books 
have sold over a billion copies in the English 
language and another billion in over 45 foreign 
languages (as of 2003). 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 
(as of 2003) versus 22 million for Émile Zola, the 
nearest contender.

Christie published over eighty novels and stageplays, 
mainly whodunnits and locked room mysteries, many of 
these featuring one of her series characters, Hercule 
Poirot or Miss Marple. She is a major figure in 
detective fiction for both her commercial success 
and her innovations in the genre. Although she 
delighted in twisting the established form, she was 
scrupulous in "playing fair" with the reader by making 
sure all necessary information for solving the puzzle 
was given. One of her early books, The Murder of 
Roger Ackroyd, is renowned for its surprise denoucement.

Most of her books and short stories have been filmed, 
some many times over (Murder on the Orient Express, 
Death on the Nile, 4.50 from Paddington). The BBC has 
produced television and radio versions of most of the 
Poirot and Marple stories. A later series of Poirot 
dramatizations starring David Suchet was made by 
Granada Television. 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 (daughter of Miss Marple's mystery-writer 
nephew Raymond West, a canonical Christie character) 
and her duck Oliver as new characters.

Biography
Born Agatha Miller, 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, and divorced in 1928.

During World War I she worked as a pharmacist, 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 eleven days, causing 
quite a storm in the press. Her car was found abandoned 
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 troubles in her first marriage. 
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 disappearence.

In 1930, Christie married Sir Max Mallowan, a British 
archaeologist, and her travels with him contributed 
background to several of her novels set in the Middle 
East. Other novels were set in Torquay, Devon, where 
she was born. Famous characters include Hercule Poirot 
and Miss (Jane) Marple. Her stage play The Mousetrap 
holds the record for the longest run ever in London, 
opening at the Ambassadors Theatre on November 25, 
1952 and as of 2005 still running after more than 
20,000 performances.

Sir Richard Attenborough, who was in the original 
production, participated in an anniversary performance: 
"It lasted so long because it is a bloody good play. 
Agatha Christie is very, very clever indeed."

In 1971 she was granted the title of Dame Commander 
of the British Empire.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
Two of her novels were written at the height of her 
career, but held back until after her death: they 
were the last cases of Poirot and Miss Marple. In 
the final Poirot novel Curtain, Christie killed her 
creation and explained in her diary that she had always 
found him insufferable. She had a great fondness for 
Miss Marple however, as she had based her 
characterisation largely on her own grandmother, so 
she allowed Miss Marple to solve one more mystery in 
Sleeping Murder and return to the solitude of her 
village.

Agatha Christie's only child, Rosalind Hicks, died 
on October 28, 2004, aged 85. Christie's grandson, 
Mathew Prichard, now owns the royalties to his 
grandmother's works.


Bibliography
1920 The Mysterious Affair at Styles (her first 
book, which introduced Hercule Poirot) 
1922 The Secret Adversary (introduced Tommy and 
Tuppence) 
1923 Murder on the Links 
1924 The Man in the Brown Suit 
1925 The Secret of Chimneys 
1926 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 
1927 The Big Four 
1928 The Mystery of the Blue Train 
1929 Partners in Crime (fifteen short stories) 
1929 The Seven Dials Mystery 
1930 The Murder at the Vicarage (introduced Jane 
Marple) 
1930 The Mysterious Mr. Quin (introduced Mr Harley 
Quin) 
1931 The Sittaford Mystery 
1932 Peril at End House 
1933 The Hound of Death (twelve short mysteries) 
1933 Lord Edgware Dies 
1933 The Thirteen Problems (thirteen short 
mysteries) 
1934 Murder on the Orient Express 
1934 Parker Pyne investigates (twelve short 
mysteries) 
1934 The Listerdale mystery (twelve short 
mysteries) 
1935 Three Act Tragedy 
1935 Why Didn't They Ask Evans? 
1935 Death in the Clouds (first published as 
Death in the Air) 
1936 The A.B.C. Murders 
1936 Murder in Mesopotamia 
1936 Cards on the Table 
1937 Death on the Nile 
1937 Dumb Witness 
1938 Appointment with Death 
1939 And Then There Were None (first published 
as Ten Little Niggers, also known as Ten 
Little Indians) 
1939 Murder is Easy 
1939 Hercule Poirot's Christmas 
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 (also known as Murder 
in Retrospect) 
1942 The Moving Finger 
1944 Towards Zero 
1944 Sparkling Cyanide 
1945 Death Comes as the End 
1946 The Hollow 
1947 The Labours of Hercules (twelve short 
mysteries featuring Hercule Poirot) 
1948 There is a Tide (also known as Taken at 
the Flood) 
1949 Crooked House 
1950 A Murder is Announced 
1951 They Came to Baghdad 
1952 Mrs McGinty's Dead 
1953 A Pocket Full of Rye 
1953 After the Funeral (also known as Funerals 
are Fatal) 
1955 Hickory Dickory Dock (also known as Hickory 
Dickory Death) 
1955 Destination Unknown 
1956 Dead Man's Folly 
1957 4.50 from Paddington (also known as What 
Mrs. McGillycuddy Saw!) 
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 (final Tommy and Tuppence, 
last novel Christie wrote) 
1974 Poirot's Early Cases (eighteen short 
mysteries) 
1975 Curtain (Poirot's last case, written 
four decades earlier) 
1976 Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple's last case, 
written four decades earlier) 
Co-authored works:

1931 The Floating Admiral written together with 
G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers and certain 
other members of the Detection Club. 
Works written as Mary Westmacott:

1930 Giant's Bread 
1934 Unfinished Portrait Novel 
1947 The Rose and the Yew Tree 
1952 A Daughter's a Daughter 
1956 The Burden 

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.