AGATHA CHRISTIE

Agatha Christie was an English writer of crime and romance novels. She is best remembered for her detective stories, including the two very different characters of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. She is considered to be the best-selling writer of all time. Agatha Christie was born in Torquay, Devon, in 1890 to Clarissa Margaret Boehmer and a wealthy American stockbroker. She was brought up by both her mother and her sister. During the First World War, she trained and worked as a nurse, helping to treat wounded soldiers. Agatha Christie began writing in 1920, after the end of the First World War. Her first story was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in 1920. This featured the soon-to-be-famous detective Hercule Poirot. The book sold well and helped meet the public’s great appetite for detective novels. It was a genre that had been popularised through Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories at the turn of the century. The plot of Agatha Christie’s novels could be described as predictable. Murders were committed by clever methods, often involving poison, which Agatha Christie knew a lot about. After questioning all the main suspects, the detective would bring all the participants into a room before explaining who the murderer was. The suspense of the novels and the fact readers feel they have a good chance of solving the crime, undoubtedly adds to the popularity of the books. (Adapted from Biography Online)