Why do we love Agatha?

Quick! Which author has sold more books than any other, except for the Bible and Shakespeare? It might not immediately occur to you to name the Queen of Mystery, but Agatha Christie's 79 novels and short story collections have sold over a billion copies in English, and another billion copies in other languages. That's not even mentioning her plays, including The Mousetrap, which is the longest continuously running play in theater history. Agatha was given private tutoring as a child, and never attended school. To alleviate her boredom and exercise her sharp mind, she invented games and stories. She married a fighter pilot during World War I and became a nurse to occupy herself in her husband's absence, writing her first Hercule Poirot mystery (which would not be published until 1920) during that time. Upon the book's publication, Christie became an instantly popular and famous mystery writer. She wrote quickly, producing at least one book, and often two or three, as well as short story collections, in every year from 1922 to 1939. Agatha herself was the subject of a mystery in 1926 when she disappeared for three weeks following her husband's request for a divorce and her mother's death. All of England became embroiled in the Mystery of the Missing Author. When Agatha was eventually found, in a seaside hotel, she claimed she had lost her memory and never commented on the subject again. She eventually re-married, to a young archaeologist, with whom she would write several non-fiction books.

Agatha defined an entire genre of light, fun fiction, filled with distinctive characters and clever solutions that would be imitated and copied for years to come. Her characters, the fussy, eccentric Belgian Hercule Poirot and the cozy, meddlesome country spinster Miss Marple, have become standards of the genre and are literary giants on a par with Sherlock Holmes. Fittingly, she received the Order of Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1971.

Biography:

Born - September 15, 1890
Torquay, Devon, England
Died - January 12, 1976
Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England

Achievements:

• 1971 - Received the Order of Dame Commander of the British Empire
• 1957 - Becomes President of the Detection Club
• 1956 - Awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• 1952 - The Mousetrap debuts in London and is still playing becoming the longest continuoulsy running play
• 1930 - The Murder at the Vicarage introducing Miss Jane Marple is published
• 1920 - Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, is published (the first of 33 featuring detective Hercule Poirot)

Partial Bibliography: