The Queen of Crime

Работу выполнила Осипова Ксения, Ученица 8 «а» класса МОУ – СОШ 4 г. Маркса, Саратовской обл.

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE ( 15 September January 1976), commonly known as Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. She also wrote romance novels under the name Mary Wesmacott, but is best remembered for her 80 detective novels and her successful West End theatre plays.

Agatha Christie was born as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torguay. Her father was Frederick Alvah Miller, a rich American stockbroker, and her mother was Clarissa Margaret Boehmer, the daughter of a British army captain.

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.

Her first marriage, an unhappy one, was in 1914 to Colonel Arhibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks, and divorced in It was during that she published her first novel in 1920, The Mysterios Affair at Styles.

On 8 December 1926, while living in Sunningdale in Berkshire, she disappeared for ten days, causing great interest in the press.

A 1979 film, Agatha, starring Vanessa Redgrave as Christie, recounted a fictionalised version of the disappearance.

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.

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

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 innovative writers in the development of the genre.

Agatha Christies first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the longrunning character detective Hercule Pourot, who appeared in 30 of Christies novels and 50 short stories.

Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in the Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and was based on Christies grandmother.

Christie has been called- by the Guinness Book of World Records, among others- the best-selling writer of books all time, and the best-selling writer of any kind together with William Shakespeare.

Books

Films

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