Agatha Christie

Argument

I wrote this paper about Agatha Christie because she is my favorite novelist since childhood. She also is my grandmother’s favorite author so instead of children tales, my grandmother read me stories with Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. As I grew up, I started playing games inspired by Agatha Christie’s books and watching movies with her famous detective Poirot.

I enjoy reading Agatha Christie’s books because I always find out something new about life and about people. It’s fascinating how humans act in conditions of stress and how hard they try to hide their mistakes. The psychology of murder it is an important part of her masterpieces. She had always tried to reveal the human condition and that made her an exceptional writer.

Most of her books are inspired by the places she had visited while she was married with Max Mallowan. She found the archeological life an interesting surrounding for her stories and tried to describe in detail every scenary.

In conclusion, I choose to write about Agatha Christie because she is the best writer I have ever known and her life and work has always fascinated me. Her sense of curiosity and the mystery she had created in her books are the tools that made every single one a masterpiece. My favorite book is Murder on the Orient Express but I intent to read the whole collection.

Introduction

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (born Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple and Tommy and Tuppence. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, “The Mousetrap”.

Born to a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, Christie served in a hospital during the First World War, before marrying and starting a family in London. Although initially unsuccessful at getting her work published, in 1920, The Bodley Head press published her novel “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”, featuring the character of Poirot. This launched her literary career.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 4 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the world's most-widely published books. According to Index Translationum, Christie is the most-translated individual author, and her books have been translated into at least 103 languages. “And Then There Were None” is Christie's best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. In 1971, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

Christie's stage play “The Mousetrap” holds the record for the longest initial run: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is still running after more than 25,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. Many of her books and short stories have been filmed, and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.