Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie became, and remains, the best-selling novelist of all time. Katherine Woolley tasked Max with showing Agatha the historic sites and each found the other's company relaxing.

Many of Christie's books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games, and graphic novels. The people, landscape, culture, birdlife, architecture and antiquities all seemed to fuel her optimistic spirit as well as her creative instincts. Christie's British literary agent later wrote to her US representative, authorising American publishers to "omit the word 'Jew' when it refers to an unpleasant character in future books. Her biographer Janet Morgan has commented that, despite "infelicities of style", the story was "compelling".The wooden counter in the foyer of St Martin's Theatre showing 22,461 performances of The Mousetrap (pictured in November 2006).

Either I cling to everything that's safe and that I know, or else I develop more initiative, do things on my own. In September 1956 it became the longest running play in British history, and in 1974 it moved to the St Martins Theatre where it has been ever since (save for an enforced hiatus during the corona virus pandemic). At 18, Christie wrote her first short story, "The House of Beauty", while recovering in bed from an illness. Miss Jane Marple was introduced in a series of short stories that began publication in December 1927 and were subsequently collected under the title The Thirteen Problems. Christie biographer Laura Thompson provides an alternative view that Christie disappeared during a nervous breakdown, conscious of her actions but not in emotional control of herself.

An anthology of shorts, generally 1-2 pages long, though a few are longer featuring Agatha Christie as a child. Her war service ended in September 1918 when Archie was reassigned to London, and they rented a flat in St. The second, Louis Montant ("Monty"), was born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1880, [18] while the family was on an extended visit to the United States.

Reflecting on the period in her autobiography, Christie wrote, "So, after illness, came sorrow, despair and heartbreak. They married on Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel Church, Clifton, Bristol, close to the home of his mother and stepfather, when Archie was on home leave. Sensitivity readers had made the edits, which were evident in digital versions of the new editions, including the entire Miss Marple run and selected Poirot novels set to be released or that have been released since 2020. Family friend and author Eden Philpotts offered shrewd and constructive advice: “The artist is only the glass through which we see nature, and the clearer and more absolutely pure that glass, so much the more perfect picture we can see through it. In 1922, the Christies joined an around-the-world promotional tour for the British Empire Exhibition, led by Major Ernest Belcher.When at home, Madge would often spend time with her little sister making up scenarios about frightening characters, and Agatha had a recurring nightmare about a terrifying ‘Gunman’. With her daughter, she spent many happy hours speculating on the backgrounds of the other passengers. Additionally, we have a mini biography with old photos of Agatha Christie for kids in the back, spanning two pages. Any upper elementary or middle schooler would have some fun with it plus learn about Agatha’s interesting childhood. Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity stunt or an attempt to frame her husband for murder.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Pat Bauer. The author Jared Cade concluded that Christie planned the event to embarrass her husband but did not anticipate the resulting public melodrama. Christie’s plays included The Mousetrap (1952), which set a world record for the longest continuous run at one theatre (8,862 performances—more than 21 years—at the Ambassadors Theatre, London) before moving in 1974 to St Martin’s Theatre, where it continued without a break until the COVID-19 pandemic closed theatres in 2020, by which time it had surpassed 28,200 performances; and Witness for the Prosecution (1953), which, like many of her works, was adapted into a successful film (1957). The 1944 publication focuses on the slow realisation of the main protagonist, after being stranded in the desert, that perhaps her carefully crafted life is not quite what it seems. The agency's fears were allayed when Christie told her friend, the codebreaker Dilly Knox, "I was stuck there on my way by train from Oxford to London and took revenge by giving the name to one of my least lovable characters.The Second World War ended in 1945 and Agatha was delighted when Max appeared on her doorstep after such a long separation. An intensely private person, made even more so by the hue and cry of the press, Agatha never spoke of this time with friends or family. Clara, who was an excellent storyteller, did not want Agatha to learn to read until she was eight but Agatha, bored and as the only child at home, taught herself to read by the age of five. Feeling introspective and inspired, Agatha took some time out of her hospital job and penned Absent in the Spring, a new Mary Westmacott novel, in just three days. The pair travelled frequently on archaeological expeditions, and she utilized the experiences she had while on her many adventures as a basis for some plots, including Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Murder in Mesopotamia (1936) and Death on the Nile (1937).