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Agatha Christie (born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in 1890) is undoubtedly one of the most famous mystery writers of her time. She wrote 66 novels and 15 books of short stories that introduced readers to some of the most imitated sleuths in all of fiction – Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple.
Christie was born in Torquay, Devon, England. She dabbled in both writing and performing in her early years, but as befitted the time, she worked in a hospital during WWI, married Archibald Christie (in 1914) and started a family.
Her first published novel was 1920’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles – a Poirot novel. An early scandalous incident saw her disappear for 10 days following her husband’s announcement in 1926 that he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. She remarried in 1930 to archeologist Max Mallowan and retained custody of her daughter Rosalind from her marriage to Christie.
Christie continued to write throughout her life, eventually becoming, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the best selling author of all time – selling an astounding 4 billion copies of her novels, short stories and plays. She is also credited with writing the play that claims the record for longest initial run, The Mousetrap, which began its run in 1952 and as of 2013 was still in production.
Agatha Christie died in 1976 at the age of 85 and was survived by her daughter (who died in 2004) and her grandson, Mathew Prichard, who is still associated with the estate.
photo by Violetriga
Agatha Christie on Readers Lane
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