Agatha Christie

Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie

Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie  was an English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best known 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, Mr Satterthwaite, and Tommy and Tuppence. Agatha-Mary Clarissa Christie was born on 15 September 1890 into a wealthy upper middle-class family in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon in South West England.

First novels: 1919–1923

    ¨Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White and The Moonstone as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her own detective novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles featuring Hercule Poirot; portrayed as a former Belgian police officer noted for his twirly large "magnificent moustaches" and egg-shaped head, who took refuge in Britain after Germany had invaded Belgium. Christie's inspiration for this stemmed from real Belgian refugees who existed in Torquay.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

            It is the masterpiece of Agatha Christie. This detective story made her famous in 1926. And it is still worth reading now. The plot is not very intricate. It starts with a murder and the famous detective Hercule Poirot is asked to investigate it. But the murder turns out to be rather mysterious… Yet Hercule Poirot did his best and found the murderer and it was…..Oh, I won’t tell you because it is the surprise ending that makes this story special.

Later life

          From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, although she continued to write. In 1975, sensing her increasing weakness, Christie signed over the rights of her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson. Recently, using experimental textual tools of analysis, Canadian researchers have suggested that Christie may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementia.Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 at age 85 from natural causes at her Winterbrook House in the north of Cholsey parish, adjoining Wallingford in Oxfordshire. She is buried in the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey. She was survived by her only child, Rosalind Margaret Hicks.