some notes about Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 15 september 1890 and died in 1976.
She wrote more than 80 books.
She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but is best remembered for her 80 detective novels and her successful West End theatre plays.

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Her works, particularly featuring detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple, have given her the title the 'Queen of Crime' and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the genre.

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She was educated at home, but when she was 16 she was sent to Paris to study piano and singing. Although she played the piano very well, her stage fright and shyness prevented her from pursuing a carreer in music.

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She married twice. First, with Archibald Christie who asked the divorce in 1926 to marry another woman. She disappeared for a time after the divorce and nobody never knew what happened. She married again in 1927. Her second husband was the archaeologist Max Mallowan, whom she met during a trip to Syria and Iraq.

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Two of her books was filmed with a millionaire cast:
Murder in the Orient Express - 1974 - with Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud
Death on Nile - 1978 - with Betty Davis, Mia Farrow, Jacqueline Bisset, Olivia Hussey, Maggie Smith.

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She sold over than 2 million books.

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Hercule Poirot
Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters: he appeared in 33 novels and 51 short stories.His first published appearance was in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (published 1920) and his last was in Curtain (published 1975, the year before Christie died). On publication of this novel, Poirot was the only fictional character to be given an obituary in the New York Times; August 6, 1975 "Hercule Poirot is Dead; Famed Belgian Detective"

Miss Marple

Miss Jane Marple is an elderly woman who lives in the little English village of St. Mary Mead. She looks like an ordinary old lady, dressed neatly in tweed and is frequently seen knitting or pulling weeds in her garden. Miss Marple sometimes comes across as confused or "fluffy", but when it comes to solving mysteries, she has a sharp logical mind, and an almost unmatched understanding of human nature with all its weaknesses, strengths, quirks and foibles. In the detective story tradition, she often embarrasses the local "professional" police by solving mysteries that have them stumped. Jane Marple, usually known as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in twelve of Agatha Christie's crime novels. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster who acts as an amateur detective, and lives in the village of St. Mary Mead. She has been portrayed numerous times on screen, and is one of the most famous of Christie's creations. Her first published appearance was in issue 350 of The Royal Magazine for December 1927 with the first printing of the short story The Tuesday Night Club which later became the first chapter of The Thirteen Problems (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.