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Last edited by raybb
January 13, 2025 | History

Agatha Christie

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, in the United Kingdom, the daughter of a wealthy American stockbroker. Her father died when she was eleven years old. Her mother taught her at home, encouraging her to write at a very young age. At the age of 16, she went to Mrs. Dryden's finishing school in Paris to study singing and piano. In 1914, at age 24, she married Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. While he went away to war, she worked as a nurse and wrote her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), which wasn't published until four years later. When her husband came back from the war, they had a daughter. In 1928 she divorced her husband, who had been having an affair. In 1930, she married Sir Max Mallowan, an archaeologist and a Catholic. She was happy in the early years of her second marriage, and did not divorce her husband despite his many affairs. She travelled with her husband's job, and set several of her novels set in the Middle East. Most of her other novels were set in a fictionalized Devon, where she was born.

Agatha Christie is credited with developing the "cozy style" of mystery, which became popular in, and ultimately defined, the Golden Age of fiction in England in the 1920s and '30s, an age of which she is considered to have been Queen. In all, she wrote over 66 novels, numerous short stories and screenplays, and a series of romantic novels using the pen name Mary Westmacott. She was the single most popular mystery writer of all time. In 1971 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Born 15 September 1890
Died 12 January 1976

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  • Cover of: Seven Deadly Sins
    First published in 2004 3 editions

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  • Cover of: Murder international: including So many steps to death, Death comes as the end, Evil under the sun

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  • Cover of: Best book of mystery stories

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  • Cover of: Murder for Christmas and three other great mysteries

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  • Cover of: Destination Unknown / The Murder at the Vicarage

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  • Cover of: Crime Collection: The Pale Horse. The Big Four. The Secret Adversary.

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  • Cover of: The Language of Literature

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  • Cover of: Mysterious Circumstances

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  • Cover of: Lady on the Case: 22 Female Detective Stories

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  • Cover of: Glencoe literature: the reader's choice: course 4

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  • Cover of: Senior Sleuths: a large print anthology of mysteries and puzzlers

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  • Cover of: Murder in our midst
    First published in 1967 3 editions

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  • Cover of: A Poirot quintet
    First published in 1977 3 editions

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  • Cover of: Murder in the manor
    Cover of edition murderinmanorsec0000agat First published in 1989 3 editions

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  • Cover of: The Mousetrap & Selected Plays

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  • Cover of: The Best of Poirot
    Cover of edition murderonorientex0000chri_k9d1 First published in 1980 3 editions

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  • Cover of: Masterpieces in Miniature: The Detectives

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  • Cover of: Shapes of the supernatural

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  • Cover of: Das Agatha Christie Lesebuch

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  • Cover of: Murderers Abroad
    Cover of edition agathachristiemu0000chri First published in 1989 2 editions

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Born 15 September 1890
Died 12 January 1976

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January 13, 2025 Edited by raybb Edited without comment.
June 13, 2024 Edited by Drini merge authors
May 1, 2024 Edited by Tom Morris merge authors
April 22, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot move website to links
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user initial import