Author Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie
Dame Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie's memorial plaque, Torre Abbey
Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller
15 September 1890(1890-09-15)
Torquay, Devon, England
Died 12 January 1976 (aged 85)
Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England
Pen name Mary Westmacott
Occupation Novelist
Nationality British
Genres Murder mystery, Thriller, Crime fiction, Romances
Literary movement Golden Age of Detective Fiction
Spouse(s) Archibald Christie (1914-1928)
Max Mallowan (1930-1976)

Influences[show]
Edgar Allan Poe, Anna Katherine Green, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton

Influenced[show]
Ruth Rendell, P. D. James, Robert Barnard

Official website
Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), commonly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime writer of novels, short stories and plays. 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. 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.

Christie has been referred to by the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling writer of books of all time and the best-selling writer of any kind, along with William Shakespeare. Only the Bible is known to have outsold her collected sales of roughly four billion copies of novels.[1] UNESCO states that she is currently the most translated individual author in the world with only the collective corporate works of Walt Disney Productions surpassing her.[2] Christie's books have been translated into (at least) 56 languages.

Her stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run in the world, opening at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November, 1952, and as of 2009 is still running after more than 23,000 performances. In 1955 Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year, Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA, for Best Play. Most of her books and short stories have been filmed, some many times over (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and 4.50 From Paddington for instance), and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.

In 1968 Booker Books, a subsidiary of the agri-industrial conglomerate Booker-McConnell, bought a 51 percent stake in Agatha Christie Limited, the private company that Christie had set up for tax purposes. Booker later increased its stake to 64 percent. In 1998, Booker sold its shares to Chorion, a company whose portfolio also includes the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.[3]



http://www.agathachristie.com/

Agatha Christie breaks a Third World Record

Agatha Christie has set a new world record – for the book with the thickest spine. Measuring over a foot long, with 4,032 pages, the volume contains the complete Miss Marple stories – all 12 novels and 20 short stories.

With 252, 16-page hand-sewn sections, the production values of this limited edition are amazing and the attention to detail is remarkable. Bound by Cedric & Chivers Period Bookbinding, cased in Winters Wintan leather, blocked in gold on the front and spine, with head and tail bands, four silk ribbon markers to keep your place, and with only 500 made, this special limited ...

The Best Miss Marple
What is your favourite Miss Marple book of all time?

The Murder at the Vicarage
The Thirteen Problems
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder is Announced
They Do it With Mirrors
A Pocket Full of Rye
4.50 from Paddington
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram's Hotel
Nemesis
Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple's Final Cases