For all her success and renown, however, Agatha Christie was a very private person. Over the years, many have attempted to capture her personality, her motivations, and the reasons for her enduring popularity, with little notable success. Now Charles Osborne, a lifelong student of Agatha Christie, has undertaken an examination of Christie and her accomplishments through her own work. The result is a comprehensive, illustrated guide to the world of Agatha Christie, featuring authoritative information on each book's provenance and on it's contemporary critical reception set against the background of the major events in the author's life.Illustrated with rarely seen photos and updated to include details of the publications, films and TV adaptations of her writings, this book provides fascinating reading for any Christie aficionado. AUTHORBIO: Charles Osborne is an internationally known expert on opera and theater who has written several books on the topics as well as novels, literary studies, and poetry.He is the author of three bestselling novelizations of Agatha Christie plays-Black Coffee (SMP, 1998), The Unexpected Guest (Minotaur, 1999), and Spider's Web (Minotaur, 2000). Osborne was born in Australia and lives in London.