Агата Кристи, английская писательница

Agatha Christie

The Queen of Crime

The Queen of Crime

• Agatha Christie is known all over the world as the Queen of Crime. She wrote 78 detective novels, 19 plays, and 6 romantic novels. Her books have been translated into 103 foreign languages. They are the third best-selling books in the world (after Shakespeare's works and the Bible).

The third best-selling books in the world

The best-selling novelist

The Guinness Book of World Record  lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only  she remains the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages.

Agatha Christie's success

• Agatha Christie's success with millions of readers lies in her ability to combine clever plots with excellent character drawing and a keen sense of humor with a great observation. Her plots always mislead the reader and keep him in suspense. He cannot guess who the criminal is. Fortunately, evil is always conquered in her novels.

Agatha Christie’s language

• Agatha Christie’s language is simple and good and it is pleasant to read her books in the original.

Christie’s childhood

Christie described her childhood as "very happy". She was surrounded by a series of strong and independent women from an early age. : Her time was spent alternating between her home in  her step-grandmother and aunt's house, and parts of Southern Europe, where her family would holiday during the winter. her parents were responsible for teaching her to read and write and to be able to perform basic maths, a subject that she particularly enjoyed. They also taught her about music, and she learned to play the piano .

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

• Agatha Christie became generally recognized in 1926, after the publishing of her novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". It is still considered her masterpiece

The first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour

In 1955 Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. Later the same year, she received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. In 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd  was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers Assosiation.

The Mousetrap

Many of her novels and short stories have been filmed. The Mousetrap , her most famous play, is now the longest-running play in history of world theatre.

The President of the  Detection Club

• To honor her many literary works, she was appointed the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the  1956 the New Year Honors .The next year, she became the President of the Detection Club. In the 1971 New Year Honors, she was promoted  Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE),three years after her husband had been knighted for his archaeological work in 1968. From 1968, owing to her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be  styled Lady Mallowan.

Suffering from Alzheimer's disease

• From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began to fail, although she continued to write. Recently, using experimental tools of textual analysis, Canadian researchers have suggested that Christie may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer's disease or other dementia.

The writer's death

• The last Poirot book, The Curtain , appeared shortly before the writer's death, and the last Miss Marple story, The Sleeping Murder, was published after her death .

Christie's 125th birthday

• On 15 September 2015, coinciding with Christie's 125th birthday, And Then There Were None  was voted as the "World's Favorite Christie", followed closely by  Murder on Orient Express  and  The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, and more than thirty feature films have been based on her work.

Hercule Poirot

• She began writing at the end of the First World War. Her first novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" was published in 1920. That was the first appearance of Hercule Poirot, who became one of the most famous private detectives since Sherlock Holmes.

Miss Marple

• Jane Marple, usually referred to as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in 12 of Agatha Christie’s  crime novels and in 20 short stories. Miss Marple is an elderly spinser who lives in the village of  and acts as an amateur Hercule Poirot consulting detective. Alongside Hercule Poirot, she is one of the most loved and famous of Christie's characters and has been portrayed numerous times on screen.