Introduction


Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the mother of all mystery writers. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the success of novelists such as Mary Higgins Clark without the work of Agatha Christie behind them. Christie’s prolific (and prolifically successful) output has secured her a unique position among mystery writers and in popular fiction as a whole. Though she often was chided by critics for skimping on character in favor of plot, Christie created two of the most memorable sleuths in mystery fiction with the characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Together, these two detectives solved the majority of Christie’s twisty plots. Due to her extensive travels with her second husband, Christie’s stories took place all over the globe, from England to the Middle East.

Essential Facts

  1. Along with the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie’s novels rank among the best-selling of all time, with printed copies numbering in the billions.
  2. Christie’s success wasn’t limited to writing novels. The initial production of her play The Mousetrap has been running for 55 years and counting. That’s more than 20,000 performances.
  3. One of the reasons poison figures so prominently as a means of murder in her books is because Christie herself worked with pharmaceuticals during World War I.
  4. One of Christie’s greatest mysteries occurred in her real life rather than her written work. She disappeared for ten days in late 1926. While she would later attribute it to depression brought on by family trauma, others wrote it off as a publicity stunt.
  5. Many of Christie’s plays and novel were turned into successful films, including the Academy Award-nominated Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).
 

Recommended Resources

  1. Agatha Christie Biography
  2. Ten Little Indians Study Guide (eNotes)
  3. The Mousetrap Study Guide (eNotes)
  4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

All Resources

Display as: Categories, List
  1. A Murder Is Announced: Videohound Movie Retriever
  2. Agatha Christie Criticism (Vol. 110)
  3. Agatha Christie (Critical Survey of Short Fiction)
  4. Agatha Christie (Magill’s Choice: 100 Masters of Mystery and Detective Fiction)
  5. Agatha Christie (Magill’s Choice: Notable British Novelists)
  6. Agatha Christie Biography
  7. Agatha Christie Criticism (Vol. 1)
  8. Agatha Christie Criticism (Vol. 12)
  9. Agatha Christie Criticism (Vol. 6)
  10. Agatha Christie Criticism (Vol. 8)
  11. Agatha Christie Review - Gillian Gill
  12. Agatha Christie's A Caribbean Mystery: Videohound Movie Retriever
  13. Agatha Christie's Murder is Easy: Videohound Movie Retriever
  14. Agatha Christie's Murder with Mirrors: Videohound Movie Retriever
  15. Agatha Christie's Sparkling Cyanide: Videohound Movie Retriever
  16. Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse: Videohound Movie Retriever
  17. Agatha Christie's Thirteen at Dinner: Videohound Movie Retriever
  18. And Then There Were None Lesson Plan
  19. And Then There Were None: Videohound Movie Retriever
  20. Appointment with Death: Videohound Movie Retriever
  21. Christie, dame Agatha: The Oxford Companion to English Literature
  22. Crime-Mystery-Detective Stories Criticism
  23. Death on the Nile: Videohound Movie Retriever
  24. Detective Fiction: The Oxford Companion to English Literature
  25. Endless Night: Videohound Movie Retriever
  26. Evil under the Sun: Videohound Movie Retriever
  27. Murder by Death: Videohound Movie Retriever
  28. Murder on the Orient Express: Videohound Movie Retriever
  29. Ordeal by Innocence: Videohound Movie Retriever
  30. Ten Little Indians Study Guide (eNotes)
  31. Ten Little Indians Study Guide (quickNotes)
  32. The Alphabet Murders: Videohound Movie Retriever
  33. The Body in the Library: Videohound Movie Retriever
  34. The Detective Novel (Critical Survey of Long Fiction)
  35. The Mirror Crack'd: Videohound Movie Retriever
  36. The Mousetrap (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
  37. The Mousetrap Study Guide (eNotes)
  38. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  39. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; The Moving Finger Study Guide (quickNotes)