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Last edited by Lisa
May 2, 2019 | History

Agatha Christie

15 September 1890 - 12 January 1976

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 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.

Website
http://www.agathachristie.com/

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Subjects
Fiction, Accessible book, Protected DAISY, Private investigators, Hercule Poirot (Fictitious character), In library, English Detective and mystery stories, Murder, Internet Archive Wishlist, Mystery, Jane Marple (Fictitious character), Detective and mystery stories, Large type books, Women detectives, Fiction in English, Belgians, Translations into Russian, Investigation, Ficción, Private investigators in fiction, Poirot, Hercule (Personaje literario), Investigadores privados, Popular Print Disabled Books, Open Library Staff Picks, Biography
Places
England, Inglaterra, Egypt, London (England), Devon (England), London, France, Iraq, Syria, Caribbean Area, Great Britain, Scotland, ying guo, Atlantis, Baghdad (Iraq), Belgium, Belgrade, Cave of Ali Baba, Cell 13, Croydon, Dartmoor (England), Devon, Egipto, Essex, Exmoor (England)
People
Hercule Poirot (Fictitious character), Agatha Christie (1890-1976), Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple (Fictitious character), Agatha Christie, Andrew Eames (1958-), Jane Marple, Anthony James Marston, Ariadne Oliver, Caroline Sheppar, Cecil Ackroyd, Charles Kent, Colonel Melrose, Edward George Armstrong, Elizabeth Russell, Emily Caroline Brent, Ethel Rogers, Flora Ackroyd, Fred Narracott, Geoffrey Raymond, Hector Blunt, Hercule Poirot (fictional Private Investigator), Herule Poirot, Inspector Davis, Inspector Japp
Time
20th century, xian dai, 1810-1890, 1900-1945, 1920s, 1930s, 1938, 1950s, 1952-, Elizabeth 2, 1984, Jerusalem, The Middle Ages, Written by Agatha Christie after coming back from a winter in Egypt., c. 1930s, mid 1900's

Links (outside Open Library)

Alternative names

  • Mary Westmacott
  • Andrew Eames
  • Westmacott Mary
  • Agatha Christie
  • Christie, Agatha, 1890-1976
  • AGATHA CHRISTIE

History

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May 2, 2019 Edited by Lisa merge authors
March 3, 2018 Edited by Ehrengardian there is no evidence for her second husband having had many affairs; I've removed that
December 20, 2017 Edited by Tom Morris merge authors
May 18, 2017 Edited by Clean Up Bot merge authors
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user initial import