Agatha Christie

  by Audrey Daene & Stéphanie Grimberghs

Agatha Christie was born in 1890 in Torquay in England. Her father was called Frederick Miller so she was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller. She was educated at home and studied singing and piano in Paris. 

In 1914 she married Archibald Christie, but the first world war broke out. Agatha worked as a nurse in a red cross hospital in Torquay at that time and that experience was useful later on. Her first book was published in 1920, “The mysterious affair at Styles”. In this story , readers met Hercule Poirot, the eccentric belgian detective with the funny-looking moustache. 

But Agatha’s book first attracted attention in 1926 when she published “The murder of Roger Ackroyd”. Agatha made news herself when she disappeared for a few days after her husband wanted a divorce. She was soon found to be staying in a hotel under an alias. Her disappearrance is still a mystery. She and Archibald divorced in 1928. When she was around 40 years old she went on a holiday and visited Irak where she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, who was 14 years younger than her. They married in 1930. 

During World War II, Agatha worked in the dispensary of the University College Hospital in London. She often assisted her husband on excavations in Irak and Syria. 

She wrote nearly seventy novels in her career and more than a hundred short stories. Her most famous characters are Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and the latter one was her personal favourite. Agatha also wrote six romantic novels under the name Mary Westmacott. 

Agatha’s plays have also made her famous and her best known play, The mousetrap, is most likely the best known mystery play in the world. Agatha became Dame Agatha in 1971. 

Agatha Christie died on the 12^th of january 1976  

Achievements :

1920 : The mysterious affair at styles  

With impeccable timing Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian detective, makes his dramatic entrance on to the English crime stage.

Recently, there had been some strange goings on at Styles St Mary. Evelyn, constant companion to old Mrs Inglethorp, had stormed out of the house muttering something about 'a lot of sharks'. And with her, something indefinable had gone from the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security; now the air seemed rife with suspicion and impending evil.

1926 : The murder of Roger Ackroyd

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He Knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He also suspected that someone had been blackmailing her. Now, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information. Unfortunately, before he could finish the letter, he was stabbed to death...

1934 : Murder on the Orient-express

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.

With tension mounting, detective Hercule Poirot comes up with not one, but two solutions to the crime.

1937 : Death on the Nile

The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile was shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway had been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful. A girl who had everything ... until she lost her life.

Hercule Poirot recalled an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: 'I'd like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger'. Yet in this exotic setting nothing was ever quite what it seemed.

1939 : Ten little niggers

Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon by the mysterious U.N.Owen. Over the dinner, a record begins to play, and the voice of the unseen host accuses each person of hiding a guilty secret. That evening, former reckless driver Tony Marston is found murdered by a deadly dose of cyanide.

The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but is preparing to strike again... and again.

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