Agatha Christie

Current Role

Agatha Christie's novel The Mousetrap has been playing to audiences for over 50 years and its dramatic conclusion remains one of the best kept secrets in theatre as well as being the longest running production in theatre history.

Early Life

Agatha Christie was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller to an American father and a British mother. She married Colonel Archibald Christie in 1914 though the marriage was an unhappy one, the couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks, and divorced in 1928. During the World War One she worked at a hospital and a pharmacy, a strong influence on her novels where many of the murders are carried out with poison. Her first novel was published in 1920 and introduced her character Hercule Poirot.

In 1930 Agatha Christie married archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan and her travels with him inspired the settings for several of her novels including Murder on the Orient Express which was written in a hotel in Istanbul, the hotel still keeps her room as a memorial to her. In 1971 Agatha Christie was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire, she died on January 12th 1976 of natural causes at the age of 85 at Winterbrook House. She is buried in St. Mary's Churchyard in Chosley.

Career Highlights

Agatha Christies first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long running character, detective Hercule Poirot who appeared in 30 of Christies novels and 50 short stories. Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in the New York Times when, in 1975, Christie gave permission for Curtain, written 4 decades earlier in which Poirot is killed, to be published. Though the public took Poirot to heart, Christie herself disliked him, revealing in her diaries that she found him insufferable.

Christie, though, had great fondness for her other well known character Miss Marple who she introduced in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930 and based on her grandmother. During her life, Agatha Christie had 80 mystery novels published and 22 collections of short stories and is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best selling writer of fiction of all time and best selling writer of any kind second only to William Shakespeare.

Interesting Facts

• Though predominantly known for her mystery novels, Christie also published 6 romance novels under the name Mary Westmacott.
• In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 10 days. Her car was found in a chalk pit and she was eventually found in a hotel in Harrogate suffering from amnesia and a nervous breakdown after her husband's infidelity and her mother's death.
• Christie left the royalties from all her works to her grandson Mathew Prichard.

Awards

• 1971 Agatha Christie achieved the incredible honor Order of Dame Commander of the British Empire