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 called—by the Guinness Book of World Records, among others — 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. 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. 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 2008 is still running after more than 23,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, 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% stake in Agatha Christie Limited, the private company that Christie had set up for tax reasons. Booker later increased its stake to 64%. In 1998, Booker sold its shares to Chorion, a company whose portfolio also includes the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.

Biography

Agatha Christie was born as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torquay, Devon, in the United Kingdom. Her parents were Frederick Alvah Miller, a rich American stockbroker, and Clarissa Margaret Boehmer, the English daughter of a British army captain. She never claimed United States citizenship. Christie had a sister, Margaret Frary Miller (1879 – 1950), called Madge, eleven years her senior, and a brother, Louis Montant Miller (1880 – 1929), called Monty, ten years older than Christie. Her father died when she was eleven years old. Her mother taught her at home, encouraging her to write at a very young age. At the age of 16, she went to Mrs Dryden's finishing school in Paris to study singing and piano.

Her first marriage, an unhappy one, was in 1914 to Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks. They divorced in 1928, two years after Agatha discovered her husband was having an affair. It was during this marriage that she published her first novel in 1920, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

During World War I she worked at a hospital and then a pharmacy, a job that influenced her work. Many of the murders in her books are carried out with poison.

Disappearance

In late 1926, Christie's husband revealed that he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce. On 3 December 1926, the couple quarrelled, and Archie Christie left their house in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening, Christie disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire; she also sent a letter to the Deputy Chief Constable of Surrey Police saying that she feared for her life. When her car was found at Newland's Corner, near Guildford, Surrey, police dredged a nearby lake and conducted a search of the surrounding countryside. Her disappearance excited great interest in the press, though the novelist Edgar Wallace speculated that her disappearance was an attempt to spite her husband and that she would be found alive and well in London.

Eleven days after her disappearance, Christie was identified as a guest at the Hydropathic Hotel (now the Hydro hotel), Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she was registered as 'Mrs Teresa Neele', from Cape Town. Christie gave no account of her disappearance, two doctors having diagnosed her as suffering from amnesia, and opinion remains divided as to the reasons for her disappearance. One suggestion is that she had suffered a nervous breakdown, brought about by a natural propensity for depression, exacerbated by her mother's death earlier that year and by her husband's infidelity. Many people at the time believed the disappearance to be a publicity stunt, and public sentiment was predominantly negative and Edgar Wallace's suggestion that the disappearance was an attempt to embarrass her husband continues to find support, even to the extent of suggestions that Christie was trying to make people believe her husband had killed her in order to punish him for his infidelity.

Second marriage and later life

In 1930, Christie married the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan. Mallowan was 14 years younger than Christie, and a Roman Catholic, while she was of the Anglican faith. Their marriage was happy in the early years, and endured despite Mallowan's many affairs in later life, notably with Barbara Parker, whom he married in 1977, the year after Christie's death.

Christie's travels with Mallowan contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, Devon, where she was born. Christie's 1934 novel, Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie's room as a memorial to the author. The Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the National Trust. Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: The short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, which is in the story collection of the same name, and the novel After the Funeral. "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots. The descriptions of the fictional Styles, Chimneys, Stoneygates and the other houses in her stories are mostly Abney in various forms.

In 1971 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976, at age 85, from natural causes, at Winterbrook House in the north of Cholsey parish, adjoining Wallingford in Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire). She is buried in the nearby St. Mary's Churchyard in Cholsey.

Christie's only child, Rosalind Hicks, died on 28 October 2004, also aged 85, from natural causes. Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard, was heir to the copyright to some of his grandmother's literary work (including The Mousetrap) and is still associated with Agatha Christie Limited.

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple

Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories.

Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and was based on women like Christie's grandmother and her "cronies"

During World War II, Christie wrote two novels intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, respectively. These have been identified as Curtain and Sleeping Murder. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years, and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realised that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.

Like Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective, Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot “insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep." However, unlike Conan Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot.

In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However it is interesting to note that the Belgian detective’s titles outnumber the Marple titles by more than two to one. This is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in her career, while The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s.

Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording, recently re-discovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady."

Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain in 1975.

Following the great success of Curtain, Christie gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976, but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend, Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder despite the fact he is noted as having died in books published earlier. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular life in St. Mary Mead.

On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter, and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. The evidence of Christie's working methods, as described by successive biographers, belies this claim.

Formula

Almost all of Agatha Christie’s books are whodunits, focusing on the English middle and upper classes. Usually, the detective either stumbles across the murder or is called upon by an old acquaintance, who is somehow involved. Gradually, the detective interrogates each suspect, examines the scene of the crime and makes a note of each clue, so readers can analyse it and be allowed a fair chance of solving the mystery themselves. Then, about halfway through, or sometimes even during the final act, one of the suspects usually dies, often because they have inadvertently deduced the killers identity and need silencing. In a few of her novels, including Death Comes as the End and Ten Little Indians, there are multiple victims. Finally, the detective organises a meeting of all the suspects and slowly denounces the guilty party, exposing several unrelated secrets along the way, sometimes over the course of thirty or so pages. The murders are often extremely ingenious, involving some convoluted piece of deception. Christie’s stories are also known for their taut atmosphere and strong psychological suspense, developed from the deliberately slow pace of her prose.

Twice, the murderer surprisingly turns out to be the narrator of the story, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Endless Night.

On four occasions, Agatha Christie lets the murderer escape justice (and in the latter three stories, implicitly almost approves of the murder), in The Witness for the Prosecution (short story version), Murder on the Orient Express, Curtain and The Unexpected Guest. On a fifth occasion (Taken at the Flood), Poirot exculpates the perpetrator of manslaughter.

Critical reception

Agatha Christie was revered as a master of suspense, plotting and characterisation by most of her contemporaries and, even today, her stories have received glowing reviews in most literary circles. Fellow crime writer Anthony Berkeley Cox was an admitted fan of her work, once saying that nobody can write an Agatha Christie novel but the authoress herself.

In popular culture

• Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and television:
• By Vanessa Redgrave in the 1979 film Agatha
• By Hilda Gobbi in a 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak Budapesten
• By Peggy Ashcroft in a 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book
• By Esme Lambert in The Dead Zone episode "Unreasonable Doubt", transmitted on 14 July 2002.
• By Olivia Williams in a 2004 BBC television program entitled Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures
• By Aya Sugimoto in a 2006 episode of a Japanese television series called Hyakunin no Ijin in 2006.
• By Fenella Woolgar in "The Unicorn and the Wasp", a 2008 episode of the BBC television series Doctor Who.
• By Michelle Trout in the film Lives and Deaths of the Poets (2009).
• The play Murder By Indecision parodies Christie with the character Agatha Crispy.

List of works

The books of the "Middle Period" (representing the years 1934 to 1946) are often regarded, especially by the critic Robert Barnard, as Christie's finest works.

Novels

Year published	Title	Detectives
1920	The Mysterious Affair at Styles	Hercule Poirot Arthur Hastings Chief Inspector Japp
1922	The Secret Adversary	Tommy and Tuppence
1923	The Murder on the Links	Hercule Poirot Arthur Hastings
1924	The Man in the Brown Suit	Anne Beddingfeld Colonel Race
1925	The Secret of Chimneys	Superintendent Battle
1926	The Murder of Roger Ackroyd	Hercule Poirot
1927	The Big Four	Hercule Poirot Arthur Hastings Chief Inspector Japp
1928	The Mystery of the Blue Train	Hercule Poirot
1929	The Seven Dials Mystery	Bill Eversleigh Superintendent Battle
1930	The Murder at the Vicarage	Miss Marple
1931	The Sittaford Mystery also Murder at Hazelmoor	Inspector Narracott
1932	Peril at End House	Hercule Poirot Arthur Hastings Chief Inspector Japp
1933	Lord Edgware Dies also Thirteen at Dinner	Hercule Poirot Arthur Hastings Chief Inspector Japp
1934	Murder on the Orient Express also Murder in the Calais Coach	Hercule Poirot
1934	Why Didn't They Ask Evans? also The Boomerang Clue	Bobby Jones Frankie Derwent
1935	Three Act Tragedy also Murder in Three Acts	Hercule Poirot
1935	Death in the Clouds also Death in the Air	Hercule Poirot Chief Inspector Japp
1936	The A.B.C. Murders also The Alphabet Murders	Hercule Poirot Arthur Hastings Chief Inspector Japp
1936	Murder in Mesopotamia	Hercule Poirot
1936	Cards on the Table	Hercule Poirot Colonel Race Superintendent Battle Ariadne Oliver
1937	Dumb Witness also Poirot Loses a Client	Hercule Poirot Arthur Hastings
1937	Death on the Nile	Hercule Poirot Colonel Race
1938	Appointment with Death	Hercule Poirot
1938	Hercule Poirot's Christmas also Murder for Christmas also A Holiday for Murder	Hercule Poirot
1939	Murder is Easy also Easy to Kill	Superintendent Battle
1939	And Then There Were None also Ten Little Indians also Ten Little Niggers
1940	Sad Cypress	Hercule Poirot
1940	One, Two, Buckle My Shoe also An Overdose of Death also The Patriotic Murders	Hercule Poirot Chief Inspector Japp
1941	Evil Under the Sun	Hercule Poirot
1941	N or M?	Tommy and Tuppence
1942	The Body in the Library	Miss Marple
1942	Five Little Pigs also Murder in Retrospect	Hercule Poirot
1942	The Moving Finger also The Case of the Moving Finger	Miss Marple
1944	Towards Zero	Superintendent Battle Inspector James Leach
1944	Death Comes as the End
1945	Sparkling Cyanide also Remembered Death	Colonel Race
1946	The Hollow also Murder After Hours	Hercule Poirot
1948	Taken at the Flood also There is a Tide...	Hercule Poirot
1949	Crooked House	Charles Hayward
1950	A Murder is Announced	Miss Marple
1951	They Came to Baghdad	Victoria Jones
1952	Mrs McGinty's Dead also Blood Will Tell	Hercule Poirot Ariadne Oliver
1952	They Do It with Mirrors also Murder with Mirrors	Miss Marple
1953	After the Funeral also Funerals are Fatal also Murder at the Gallop	Hercule Poirot
1953	A Pocket Full of Rye	Miss Marple
1954	Destination Unknown also So Many Steps to Death
1955	Hickory Dickory Dock also Hickory Dickory Death	Hercule Poirot
1956	Dead Man's Folly	Hercule Poirot Ariadne Oliver
1957	4.50 from Paddington also What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! also Murder She Said	Miss Marple
1958	Ordeal by Innocence
1959	Cat Among the Pigeons	Hercule Poirot
1961	The Pale Horse	Inspector Lejeune Ariadne Oliver
1962	The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side also The Mirror Crack'd	Miss Marple
1963	The Clocks	Hercule Poirot
1964	A Caribbean Mystery	Miss Marple
1965	At Bertram's Hotel	Miss Marple
1966	Third Girl	Hercule Poirot Ariadne Oliver
1967	Endless Night
1968	By the Pricking of My Thumbs	Tommy and Tuppence
1969	Hallowe'en Party	Hercule Poirot Ariadne Oliver
1970	Passenger to Frankfurt
1971	Nemesis	Miss Marple
1972	Elephants Can Remember	Hercule Poirot Ariadne Oliver
1973	Postern of Fate final Tommy and Tuppence last novel Christie wrote	Tommy and Tuppence
1975	Curtain Poirot's last case, written four decades earlier	Hercule Poirot Arthur Hastings
1976	Sleeping Murder Miss Marple's last case, written four decades earlier	Miss Marple

Collections of short stories

In addition to her novels Christie wrote and published 160 short stories in her career. Almost all of these were written for publication in fiction magazines with over half of them first appearing in the 1920s. They were then published in book form in various collections, some of which were identical in the UK and US (e.g., The Labours of Hercules) and others where publication took place in one market but not the other.

Twelve of the stories which were published in The Sketch magazine in 1924 under the sub-heading of The Man who was No. 4 were further joined into one continuous narrative in the novel The Big Four in 1927. Four further stories, The Submarine Plans (1923), Christmas Adventure (1923), The Mystery of the Baghdad Chest (1932) and The Second Gong (1932), were expanded into longer narratives by Christie (respectively The Incredible Theft, The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, The Mystery of the Spanish Chest and Dead Man's Mirror although the shorter versions of all four have also been published in the UK).

Only one short story remains unpublished in the UK in book form: Three Blind Mice (1948) on which a Christie placed a moratorium whilst the stage play based on the story, The Mousetrap, was still running in the West End.

In the US, the story Christmas Adventure has not been published in book form.

The main collections in both markets are:

• 1924 Poirot Investigates (short stories: eleven in the UK, fourteen in the US)
• 1929 Partners in Crime (fifteen short stories; featuring Tommy and Tuppence)
• 1930 The Mysterious Mr. Quin (twelve short stories; introducing Mr. Harley Quin)
• 1932 The Thirteen Problems (thirteen short stories; featuring Miss Marple, also known as The Tuesday Club Murders in the US)
• 1933 The Hound of Death (twelve short stories - UK only)
• 1934 The Listerdale Mystery (twelve short stories - UK only)
• 1934 Parker Pyne Investigates (twelve short stories; introducing Parker Pyne and Ariadne Oliver, also known as Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective in the US)
• 1937 Murder in the Mews (four novella-length stories; featuring Hercule Poirot, also known as Dead Man's Mirror in the US)
• 1939 The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
• 1947 The Labours of Hercules (twelve short stories; featuring Hercule Poirot)
• 1948 The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories (eleven short stories - US only)
• 1950 Three Blind Mice and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
• 1951 The Under Dog and Other Stories (nine short stories - US only)
• 1960 The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (six short stories - UK only)
• 1961 Double Sin and Other Stories (eight short stories - US only)
• 1971 The Golden Ball and Other Stories (fifteen short stories - US only)
• 1974 Poirot's Early Cases (eighteen short stories, also known as Hercule Poirot's Early Cases in the US)
• 1979 Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories (eight short stories - UK only)
• 1991 Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories (eight short stories - UK only)
• 1997 The Harlequin Tea Set (nine short stories - US only)
• 1997 While the Light Lasts and Other Stories (nine short stories - UK only)

In addition, various collections have been published over the years which re-print short stories which have previously appeared in other collections e.g. Surprise, Surprise! (1965 in the US). On occasion, in among the reprinted material, these collections have sometimes contained the first book printing of an individual story e.g. The Market Basing Mystery in the UK version of Thirteen for Luck! (1966) which later appeared in the same market in Poirot's Early Cases.

Novels written as Mary Westmacott

• 1930 Giant's Bread
• 1934 Unfinished Portrait
• 1944 Absent in the Spring
• 1948 The Rose and the Yew Tree
• 1952 A Daughter's a Daughter
• 1956 The Burden

Plays

• 1930 Black Coffee
• 1943 And Then There Were None
• 1945 Appointment with Death
• 1946 Murder on the Nile/Hidden Horizon
• 1951 The Hollow
• 1952 The Mousetrap
• 1953 Witness for the Prosecution
• 1954 Spider's Web
• 1956 A Daughter's a Daughter (Written in the late 1930s. Performed professionally once. Unpublished but turned into the 1952 Mary Westmacott novel)
• 1958 Verdict
• 1958 The Unexpected Guest
• 1960 Go Back for Murder
• 1962 Rule of Three (Comprised of Afternoon at the Seaside, The Rats and The Patient)
• 1972 Fiddler's Three (Originally written as Fiddler's Five. Unpublished.)
• 1973 Akhnaton (Written in 1937)
• 2003 Chimneys (Written in 1931, but unperformed for 72 years. Unpublished.)

Radio Plays

• 1937 The Yellow Iris (Based on the short story of the same name)
• 1947 Three Blind Mice (Christie's celebrated stage play The Mousetrap was based on this radio play)
• 1948 Butter In a Lordly Dish
• 1954 Personal Call

Television Plays

• 1937 Wasp's Nest (Based on the short story of the same name)

Nonfiction

• 1946 Come, Tell Me How You Live
• 1977 Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

Other published works

• 1925 The Road of Dreams (Poetry)
• 1965 Star Over Bethlehem and other stories (Christian stories and poems)
• 1973 Poems

Co-authored works

• 1930 Behind The Screen. A radio serial written together with Hugh Walpole, Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, E. C. Bentley and Ronald Knox of the Detection Club. Published in book form in 1983 in The Scoop and Behind The Screen.
• 1931 The Scoop. A radio serial written together with Dorothy L. Sayers, E. C. Bentley, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts and Clemence Dane of the Detection Club. Published in book form in 1983 in The Scoop and Behind The Screen.
• 1931 The Floating Admiral. A book written together with G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers and certain other members of the Detection Club.
• 1956 Towards Zero (A West End theatre dramatization of her 1944 novel co-written with Gerard Verner)

Other works based on Christie's books and plays

Plays adapted into novels by Charles Osborne

• 1998 Black Coffee
• 1999 The Unexpected Guest
• 2000 Spider's Web

Plays adapted by other authors

• 1928 Alibi (dramatized by Michael Morton from the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
• 1936 Love from a Stranger (play) (dramatized by Frank Vosper from the short story Philomel Cottage)
• 1939 Tea for Three (dramatized by Margery Vosper from the short stort Accident)
• 1940 Peril at End House (dramatized from her novel by Arnold Ridley)
• 1949 Murder at the Vicarage (dramatized from the novel by Moie Charles and Barbara Toy)
• 1977 Murder at the Vicarage (dramatized from the novel by Leslie Darbon)
• 1981 Cards on the Table (dramatized from the novel by Leslie Darbon)
• 1993 Murder is Easy (dramatized from the novel by Clive Exton)
• 2005 And Then There Were None (dramatized from the novel by Kevin Elyot)

Movie Adaptations

• 1928 The Coming of Mr. Quin (Based on the short story The Coming of Mr. Quin)
• 1929 Die Abenteurer GmbH (Based on The Secret Adversary)
• 1931 Alibi (Based on the stage play of the same name from the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
• 1931 Black Coffee
• 1932 Le Coffret de laque (Black Coffee)
• 1934 Lord Edgware Dies
• 1937 Love from a Stranger (Based on the stage play of the same name from the short story Philomel Cottage. Released in the US as A Night of Terror)
• 1945 And Then There Were None
• 1947 Love from a Stranger (Released in the UK as A Stranger Walked In)
• 1957 Witness for the Prosecution
• 1960 Spider's Web
• 1962 Murder, She Said (Based on the novel 4.50 From Paddington)
• 1963 Murder at the Gallop (Based on the novel After the Funeral)
• 1964 Murder Most Foul (Based on the novel Mrs. McGinty's Dead)
• 1964 Murder Ahoy! (An original movie not based on any of the books, though it borrows some of the elements of They Do It with Mirrors)
• 1965 Gumnaam (uncredited adaptation of And Then There Were None}
• 1966 Ten Little Indians
• 1966 The Alphabet Murders (Based on The A.B.C. Murders)
• 1972 Endless Night
• 1974 Murder on the Orient Express
• 1975 Ten Little Indians
• 1978 Death on the Nile
• 1980 The Mirror Crack'd (Based on The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side)
• 1982 Evil Under the Sun
• 1984 Ordeal by Innocence
• 1988 Appointment with Death
• 1987 Desyat Negrityat (Ten Little Niggers)
• 1989 Ten Little Indians
• 1995 Innocent Lies (Loosely based on the novel Towards Zero)
• 2005 Mon petit doigt m'a dit... (By the Pricking of my Thumbs)
• 2007 L'Heure zéro (Towards Zero)

Television Adaptations

• 1938 Love from a Stranger (TV) (Based on the stage play of the same name from the short story Philomel Cottage)
• 1947 Love from a Stranger (TV)
• 1949 Ten Little Indians
• 1959 Ten Little Indians
• 1970 Murder at the Vicarage
• 1980 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
• 1982 Spider's Web (TV)
• 1982 The Seven Dials Mystery
• 1982 The Agatha Christie Hour
• 1982 Murder is Easy
• 1982 The Witness for the Prosecution
• 1983 The Secret Adversary
• 1983 Partners in Crime
• 1983 A Caribbean Mystery
• 1983 Sparkling Cyanide
• 1984 The Body in the Library
• 1985 Murder with Mirrors
• 1985 The Moving Finger
• 1985 A Murder Is Announced
• 1985 A Pocket Full of Rye
• 1985 Thirteen at Dinner
• 1986 Dead Man's Folly
• 1986 Murder in Three Acts
• 1986 Murder at the Vicarage
• 1987 Sleeping Murder
• 1987 At Bertram's Hotel
• 1987 Nemesis
• 1987 4.50 from Paddington
• 1989 The Man in the Brown Suit
• 1989 A Caribbean Mystery
• 1991 They Do It with Mirrors
• 1992 The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
• 1997 The Pale Horse
• 2001 Murder on the Orient Express very loose adaptation
• 2003 Sparkling Cyanide very loose adaptation
• 2004 The Body in the Library very loose adaptation
• 2004 Murder at the Vicarage
• 2004 4.50 from Paddington
• 2005 A Murder is Announced
• 2005 Sleeping Murder
• 2006 The Moving Finger
• 2006 By the Pricking of My Thumbs
• 2006 The Sittaford Mystery
• 2007 Hercule Poirot's Christmas (A French film adaptation)
• 2007 Towards Zero
• 2007 Nemesis very loose adaptation
• 2007 At Bertram's Hotel - very loose adaptation
• 2007 Ordeal by Innocence
• 2008 A Pocket Full of Rye

Agatha Christie's Poirot television series

Episodes include:

• 1990 Peril at End House
• 1990 The Mysterious Affair at Styles
• 1994 Hercule Poirot's Christmas
• 1995 Murder on the Links
• 1995 Hickory Dickory Dock
• 1996 Dumb Witness
• 2000 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd very loose adaptation
• 2000 Lord Edgware Dies
• 2001 Evil Under the Sun
• 2001 Murder in Mesopotamia
• 2004 Five Little Pigs
• 2004 Death on the Nile
• 2004 Sad Cypress
• 2004 The Hollow
• 2005 The Mystery of the Blue Train
• 2005 Cards on the Table
• 2005 After the Funeral
• 2006 Taken at the Flood
• 2008 Mrs. McGinty's Dead
• 2008 Cat Among the Pigeons
• 2008 Third Girl
• 2008 Appointment with Death

Graphic novels

Euro Comics India began issuing a series of graphic novel adaptations of Christie's work in 2007.

• 2007 The Murder on the Links Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Marc Piskic
• 2007 Murder on the Orient Express Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Solidor (Jean-François Miniac).
• 2007 Death on the Nile Adapted by Francois Riviere, Illustrated by Solidor (Jean-François Miniac)
• 2007 The Secret of Chimneys Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Laurence Suhner
• 2007 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Adapted and illustrated by Bruno Lachard
• 2007 The Mystery of the Blue Train Adapted and illustrated by Marc Piskic
• 2007 The Man in the Brown Suit Adapted and illustrated by Alain Paillou
• 2007 The Big Four Adapted by Hichot and illustrated by Bairi
• 2007 The Secret Adversary Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq
• 2007 The Murder at the Vicarage Adapted and illustrated by "Norma"
• 2007 Murder in Mesopotamia Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Chandre
• 2007 And Then There Were None Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq
• 2007 Endless Night Adapted by Francois Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq

HarperCollins independently began issuing this series also in 2007.

In addition to the titles issued the following titles are also planned for release:

• 2008 Ordeal by Innocence Adapted and illustrated by Chandre
• 2008 Hallowe'en Party Adapted and illustrated by Chandre
• 2008 Peril at End House Adapted by Thierry Jollet and illustrated by Didier Quella-Guyot
• 2009 Dumb Witness Adapted and illustrated by "Marek"

Video games

• 1988 The Scoop (published by Spinnaker Software and Telarium)
• 2005 Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None
• 2006 Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express
• 2007 Death on the Nile "I-Spy" hidden-object game
• 2007 Agatha Christie: Evil Under the Sun
• 2008 Agatha Christie: Peril at End House "I-Spy" hidden-object game

Unpublished material

• Snow Upon the Desert (romantic novel)
• Personal Call (supernatural radio play, featuring Inspector Narracott - a recording is in the British National Sound Archive)
• The Woman and the Kenite (horror: an Italian translation, allegedly transcribed from an Italian magazine of the 1920s, is available on the internet La moglie del Kenita
• Butter In a Lordly Dish (horror/detective radio play, adapted from The Woman and the Kenite)
• Being So Very Wilful (romantic)
• In September 2008, the Christie authority Jon Curran revealed the existence of two unpublished Poirot short stories, apparently to be published in a book he is editing.

Animation

In 2004, the Japanese broadcasting company Nippon Housou Kyoukai turned Poirot and Marple into animated characters in the anime series Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, introducing Mabel West (daughter of Miss Marple's mystery-writer nephew Raymond West, a canonical Christie character) and her duck Oliver as new characters.

See also

• Tropes in Agatha Christie's novels
• Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures'' (Her life story in a 2004 BBC drama)
• Abney Hall (home to her brother-in-law; several books use Abney as their setting)
• Greenway Estate (Christie's former home in Devon. The grounds are now in the possession of the National Trust and open to the public)

References

Further reading

Articles

• Mann, Jessica "Taking liberties with Agatha Christie (review of Laura Thompson's Agatha Christie: An English Mystery)". The Daily Telegraph, .
• Kerridge, Jake "The crimes of Agatha Christie (print edition of 6 October 2007: She made murder a parlour game) (review of Laura Thompson's Agatha Christie: An English Mystery)". The Daily Telegraph (Review), .

Books

• Barnard, Robert (1980). A Talent to Deceive – An Appreciation of Agatha Christie. London: Collins. Reprinted as New York: Mysterious Press, 1987.
• Thompson, Laura (2007). Agatha Christie : An English Mystery. London: Headline Review.

External links

• Dutch Agatha Christie collection
• All About Agatha Christie: Comprehensive Fan Website
• Official Agatha Christie site
• AgathaChristie.net - unofficial Christie website
• Agatha Christie profile and articles at "The Guardian"
• Agatha Christie profile on PBS.ORG
• "Biography of an Author"
• The Disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926
• Works by Agatha Christie at Project Gutenberg
• The Agatha Christie Appreciation League
• Agatha Christie Turkey fan site
• Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay
• newly discovered audio tapes of Agatha Christie talking about the origins of Miss Marple online here