Agatha Christie Fact File
Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976), born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was an English detective novelist. She is the best-selling fiction writer of all time, with about 2 billion copies sold. Her books have been translated into 103 languages. Her works also have seen up to 48 film adaptations.
Below is a fact file of the late famous crime novelist.
Full Name: Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller.
Other Work History.
Pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital in London.
VAD Nurse at a hospital in Devon during World War 1 (Torquay’s Red Cross hospital).
Archaeological digs for her husband.
Agatha Christie Career as a Novelist
Agatha Christie’s writing career saw her write 66 crime/detective novels and 6 romantic novels as Mary Westmacott
She also wrote 13 plays and 154 short stories, most of which were published in 16 collections.
First works:
Christie’s first short story was at age 18, titled “The House of Beauty”.
Her first novel, “Snow Upon the Desert” under pseudonym Monosyllaba, was rejected by the six publishers she approached.
“The Mysterious Affair at Styles” (1920) was her first detective fiction, published by The Bodley Head.
Active years🙂
1920 – 1976.
Agatha Christie’s most sold/ most popular books:
Some of her most famous works include:
And Then There Were None (1939), The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Death on the Nile (1937), A Murder Is Announced (1950).
“And Then There Were None” sold more than 100 million copies alone.
Writing pseudonyms: Mary Westmacott.
Genres/themes: detective, crime fiction, romance stories.
Total copies sold: 300 million copies.
Motivation/Inspiration/Influence – imaginary childhood friends, famous authors, and world travels. As a child, her mother and a local friend of the family, Eden Philpott, encouraged her to write poetry and short stories.
Writing process and fiction writing style
“Plots come to me at such odd moments, when I am walking along the street, or examining a hat shop…suddenly a splendid idea comes into my head.”
Taking random notes on random ideas and jotting possible plots and characters in notebooks was her way. Therefore, she did not begin with a structure, but rather from the random thoughts some of the ideas made it to her final works.
She used a Dictaphone to relay her stories.
Books adapted for films/movies, tv shows.
At least 30 feature films and over 100 TV productions been made. In addition to film adaptations, her works are also adapted for radio, video games, and graphic novels.
Below is a list of Agatha Christie’s books adapted for film and TV shows.
The Passing of Mr. Quinn – 1928
Death on the Nile – released 2022.
Marple 2004 – 2013
Poirot 1989 – 2013
Death on the Nile – 1978,2004, 2022
Murder on the Orient Express -2017
Personal Life
Date of Birth: September 15, 1890, Torquay, Devon, England
Father: Frederick Alvah Miller
Mother: Clarissa “Clara” Margaret Miller (nee Boehmer)
Education🙂
Home schooled as a child.
Later, studied photography at The Reimann School of Art and Design.
Awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature degree by the University of Exeter.
Marital status, spouse/spouses:
Colonel Archibald Christie in 1914 (Divorced 1928) whom she first met at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke.
Archeologist Sir Max Mallowan, 1930 (till death), they first met at an archaeological dig in the Middle East.
Children: Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Hicks (1919 – 2004), named after the Shakespeare heroine.
Net worth: – Estimated total earnings from her career as a novelist is approximately $102.9 million in 2022.
Hobbies/Likes – sun, sea, travelling, strange foods, sports, concerts, theatres, pianos, gardening, the smell of coffee, dogs, and embroidery. Her favourite writers were Elizabeth Bowen and Graham Greene.
Dislikes: Crowds, loud noises, gramophones, and cinemas.
Siblings: Louis Montant “Monty” Miller, Margaret Frary “Madge” Miller.
List of All Books by Agatha Christie.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Giant’s Bread, The Secret Adversary, Peril at End House, The Murder on the Links, Lord Edgware Dies, The Man in the Brown Suit , Murder on the Orient Express, The Secret of Chimneys, Unfinished Portrait, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (see The Murder of Roger Ackroyd book reviews, ratings and summary), Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
The Big Four, Three Act Tragedy, The Mystery of the Blue Train, Death in the Clouds, The Seven Dials Mystery, Murder in Mesopotamia, The Murder at the Vicarage, Cards on the Table, The Floating Admiral.
Dumb Witness, The Sittaford Mystery, The A.B.C. Murders, Death on the Nile, Appointment with Death, Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Murder Is Easy, And Then There Were None, Sad Cypress, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe.
Evil Under the Sun, N or M?, The Body in the Library, Five Little Pigs, The Moving Finger, Towards Zero
Absent in the Spring, Death Comes as the End, Sparkling Cyanide, The Hollow, Taken at the Flood.
The Rose and the Yew Tree, Crooked House, A Murder Is Announced, They Came to Baghdad, Mrs McGinty’s Dead , They Do It with Mirrors, A Daughter’s a Daughter, After the Funeral, A Pocket Full of RyeDestination Unknown, Hickory Dickory Dock, Dead Man’s Folly, The Burden, 4.50 from Paddington.
Ordeal by Innocence, Cat Among the Pigeons, The Pale Horse, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, The Clocks, A Caribbean Mystery, At Bertram’s Hotel, Third Girl, Endless Night, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, Hallowe’en Party, Passenger to Frankfurt, Nemesis, Elephants Can Remember, Postern of Fate, Curtain.
Sleeping Murder and Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly.
Agatha Christie Awards and Nominations.
Awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956
in 1971 Agatha Christie received the Order of Dame Commander of the British Empire, making her Dame Agatha Christie.
Trivia
She was the first crime writer to have 100,000 copies of 10 of her titles published by Penguin on the same day in 1948.
Dame Christie mysteriously disappeared for 11 days In December 1926 Only to be found at a hotel in Harrogate. The government conducted an expensive search operation with over 1,000 police out looking for her.
She made herself a character in her book “The Body in the Library”.
Agatha wrote her romance novels under a secret pseudonym, Mary Westmacott, for 20 years. This was to allow for free exploration of the psychological romance genre with no expectations from her fans.
Christie’s play The Mousetrap is the world’s longest-running play.
She described The Mystery of the Blue Train as ‘easily the worst book I ever wrote’. She wrote this while in the Canary Islands.
Her husband was knighted Sir Max Mallowan in 1968 for his archaeological work.
Dame Agatha Christie’s will revealed she had left only £106,683, having managed to dispose of most of her wealth before she died.
She suffered from seasickness.
Similar writers
Dorothy L Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle, P d James, Ruth Rendell, Dashiell Hammett, Edgar Allan Poe, Lee Child, Louise Penny, Raymond Chandler, Debbie, James Patterson, John le Carré, Ngaio Marsh, Stieg Larsson, Sue Grafton, Ann Cleeves, Anthony Horowitz, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Georges Simenon, Margery Allingham, Michael Connelly, Patricia Cornwell.
