Agatha Christie is one of the world’s bestselling authors of all time, and is known affectionately as the Queen of Mystery. Millions of people around the world have enjoyed her stories, and continue to do so over a century since her first novel was published. In this article, we are going to celebrate Christie and delve into her extraordinary life and work.
Early Life
Agatha Christie was born on 15 September 1890 in Torquay, Devon, in the south-west of England. She was christened with the full name Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan.
Agatha developed her love of books from an early age, re-telling stories from the bible and Greek myths to her brother, Louis. In her teenage years, Agatha was educated at home and within a few days was able to play the piano, read in French and Latin, as well as begin to learn Persian. Her first poem was published when she was just 11 in a children’s magazine, but Agatha put her writing to one side for a few years and learnt to be a nurse at the dispensary in Torquay.
Marvelous Mysteries
Agatha Christie wrote many successful mystery stories, particularly detective fiction. She was the master of the classic whodunit, famously said to ‘challenge the reader’s powers of deduction and deduction’. Most of her plot-twisters were built around two central characters, eccentric retired detective Hercule Poirot and abstemious spinster Miss Marple.
Most of Christie’s mysteries were set within a closed environment, usually a country house, where a group of people can participate in the plot and deceiving the scrupulous detective. Christie was particularly amusing in her choice of names, which often held clues in themselves, such as the name Percival Protheroe, a recurring victim who is invariably killed in Christie’s books.
Bestselling Author
Including sales of her own books and returns in the decades after her death, Christie has sold over four billion copies of her books, making her the most widely published author of all time. Her novels have been translated into over 103 languages and her plays have been seen by millions of people around the world. Alongside Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, Christie is the best-selling author in the mystery genre and in the field of crime fiction.
Although her novel output was mostly restricted to 73 published stories, one of her plays was translated into fifty languages, ensuring her works were made accessible to readers from many different countries. Additionally, many of her stories have been adapted for television, film, radio and theater.
Agatha Christie wrote a staggering 66 detective novels, 14 short stories, two poetry books and seven romance novels throughout her life. She has inspired thousands of writers, who have been influenced to write stories in a similar vein.
So, now it’s time to raise a glass to the one and only Queen of Mystery, Agatha Christie. No one will ever forget her and her work will live on for generations to come.
