Agatha Christie
1890-1976
  

The Queen of Crime grew up in Torquay. After her father's death she accompanied her mother on a trip to Egypt and shortly after her return she met her first husband, Archibald Christie. In 1914 they married in Bristol. Her husband was posted abroad and Agatha became a nurse in a surgical ward, tending the casualties sent back from the front. Then she transferred to the dispensary where she gained a rudimentary knowledge of poisons - a knowledge which she later used in her books. 
Their only child Rosalind was born in 1919. After 1922 the marriage started to break up and in 1926 the stress led to Agatha's disappearance for ten days. She never explained the full story of those ten days which culminated in her discovery in a Harrogate hotel. Two years later the couple divorced.
On a trip to Baghdad she met the archaeologist Max Mallowan. They married in 1932. The marriage was a great succes. They lived happily together for forty-six years until Agatha's death. She also wrote under the pseudonym 'Mary Westmacott'.
Who has not heard of Hercule Poirot with his "little grey cells" or of Miss Marple! See also Charles Osborne.

 

David Suchet (right) as Hercule Poirot and Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings
 

Titles and year of publication:
 
'Poirot' Novels
 1) The Mysterious Affair at Styles  1920
 2) The Murder on the Links  1923
 3) Poirot Investigates (short stories)  1924
 4) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd  1926
 5) The Big Four  1927
 6) The Mystery of the Blue Train  1928
 7) Peril at End House  1932
 8) Lord Edgware Dies (US Title: Thirteen at Dinner)  1933
 9) Murder on the Orient Express (US Title: Murder in the Calais Coach)  1934
10) Three-Act Tragedy (US Title: Murder in Three Acts)  1934
11) Death in the Clouds (US Title: Death in the Air)  1935
12) The A.B.C. Murders (Also published as: The Alphabet Murders)  1936
13) Murder in Mesopotamia  1936
14) Cards on the Table  1936
15) Murder in the Mews (short stories) (US Title: Dead Man's Mirror)  1937
16) Dumb Witness (US Titles: "Poirot Loses a Client" and "Murder at Littlegreen House")  1937
17) Death on the Nile  1937
18) Appointment with Death  1938
19) Hercule Poirot's Christmas (US Titles: "Murder for Christmas" and "A Holiday for Murder")  1938
20) Sad Cypress  1940
21) One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (US Titles: "The Patriotic Murders" and "An Overdose of Death")  1940
22) Evil under the Sun  1941
23) Five Little Pigs (US Title: Murder in Retrospect)  1942
24) The Hollow (US Title: Murder After Hours)  1946
25) The Labours of Hercules (short stories)  1947
26) Taken at the Flood (US Title: There Is a Tide)  1948
27) The Under Dog and other stories (short stories)  1951
28) Mrs McGinty's Dead (Also published as: Blood Will Tell)  1952
29) After the Funeral (US Title: Funerals Are Fatal)  1953
30) Hickory, Dickory, Dock (US Title: Hickory, Dickory, Death)  1955
31) Dead Man's Folly  1956
32) Cat among the Pigeons  1959
33) The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrees (short stories)  1960
34) The Clocks  1963
35) Third Girl  1966
36) Hallowe'en Party  1969
37) Elephants Can Remember  1972
38) Poirot's Early Cases (US Title: Hercule Poirot's Early Cases) (short stories)  1974
39) Curtain: Poirot's Last Case  1975
40) A Poirot Quintet (short stories)  1979
41) The Best of Poirot (short stories)  1981
'Miss Marple' Novels
 1) The Murder at the Vicarage  1930
 2) The Thirteen Problems (US Title: The Tuesday Club Murders) (Also published as: Miss Marple and the Thirteen Problems) (short stories)  1932
 3) The Body in the Library  1942
 4) The Moving Finger (Also published as: The Case of the Moving Finger)  1943
 5) A Murder is Announced  1950
 6) They Do It with Mirrors (US Title: Murder with Mirrors)  1952
 7) A Pocket Full of Rye  1953
 8) 4.50 from Paddington (US Title: What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!) (Also published as: Murder, She Said)  1957
 9) The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (US Title: The Mirror Crack'd)  1962
10) A Caribbean Mystery  1964
11) At Bertram's Hotel  1965
12) Nemesis  1971
13) Sleeping Murder  1976
14) Miss Marple's Final Cases (short stories)  1979
Other Novels
 1) The Secret Adversary  1922
 2) The Man in the Brown Suit  1924
 3) The Secret of Chimneys  1925
 4) The Seven Dials Mystery  1929
 5) Partners in Crime (short stories)  1929
 6) The Mysterious Mr Quinn (short stories)  1930
 7) The Sittaford Mystery (US Title: Murder at Hazelmoor)  1931
 8) The Hound of Death (short stories)  1933
 9) The Listerdale Mystery (short stories)  1934
10) Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (US Title: The Boomerang Clue)  1934
11) Parker Pyne Investigates (US Title: Mr. Parker Pyne: Detective) (short stories)  1934
12) Murder is Easy (US Title: Easy to Kill)  1939
13) Ten Little Niggers (US Title: And Then There Were None) (Also published as: Ten Little Indians)  1939
14) N or M?  1941
15) Towards Zero  1944
16) Death Comes as the End  1945
17) Sparkling Cyanide (US Title: Remembered Death)  1945
18) Crooked House  1949
19) They Came to Baghdad  1951
20) Destination Unknown (US Title: So Many Steps to Death)  1954
21) Ordeal by Innocence  1958
22) The Pale Horse  1961
23) 13 for Luck! (short stories)  1966
24) Endless Night  1967
25) By the Pricking of My Thumbs  1968
26) Passenger to Frankfurt  1970
27) Postern of Fate  1973
As 'Mary Westmacott'
 1) Giant's Bread  1930
 2) Unfinished Portrait  1934
 3) Absent in the Spring  1944
 4) The Rose and the Yew Tree  1948
 5) A Daughter's a Daughter  1952
 6) The Burden  1956

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