Agatha Christie

The world's best-selling writer

Although she died over 40 years ago, Agatha Christie is still one of the world's
top-selling authors, and she remains the best-selling fiction writer of all time.

by Andrew Rossiter

Agatha Christie in mid life

Although she died over 40 years ago, Agatha Christie is still, ​according to​ the ​Guinness Book
of Records​, the world's most successful writer of ​fiction​. Agatha Christie has sold between two
and four billion books – about as many as Shakespeare, and four times as many as the next
most successful writer of fiction, ​romance​ writer Barbara Cartland. To put things in perspective,
J.K.Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, has only sold about a quarter as many books as
Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie’s first ​novel​, ​The Mysterious Affair at Styles,​ was published in 1920; and since
then she has been a non-stop best-seller. Over a billion (yes, one thousand million!!) copies of
her books have been sold in the English language alone; and a further billion have been sold in
translation! With sales of her books still running at 5 million copies a year, and actually
increasing, the grand old lady's record is getting further and further ahead of any competition all
the time.
Apart from the quality of her novels, one reason for Agatha Christie’s ​lasting​ popularity is that
she is, according to UNESCO, the world’s most translated fiction writer. Noone is quite sure how
many languages Agatha Christie’s books have been translated into, but it is at least 103, and
maybe quite a few more. Harry Potter novels are a long way behind, as they have only been
translated into 68 languages, according to their publisher.
Agatha Christie was born on September 15th 1890, in the ​genteel​ seaside town of Torquay, in
the southwest of England. Although her father was American, Agatha Christie (born Agatha
Miller) belonged from birth to that prosperous English upper-middle class she portrayed is so
many of her books and ​plays​. It was a world she knew and observed intimately, a world of
leisure and prosperity, of afternoon tea in the drawing room, of tennis and travel. In many ways,
it was a very closed world, a world where characters seem so often to be ​sheltered​ from the
unfortunate realities of life such as work. Unless, of course, that work happened to be detection.
Like Agatha Christie herself, her heroes and heroines are brilliant. There is ​discreet​ Miss
Marple, Agatha's​ alter ego​, the ​elderly​ lady and amateur detective who can always put
together the pieces in the puzzle, while others keep​ barking up the wrong tree​. And there is the
gentlemanly Hercule Poirot, forever reminding people that he is "Belgian, not French," and
solving​ mysteries as cleverly as any detective has ever done.
Poirot and Miss Marple had to be ​genii​, because their creator was a genius. Although many of
Agatha Christie's novels and ​plays​ take place in basically similar situations, each one is
different. In her most famous works, most of which have been filmed, like ​Murder on the Orient
Express​ or ​Death on the Nile,​ the characters move in a closed circuit, cut off from the outside
world. It can be an island, or a ship, or a moving train, or just a country house. Each time, a
crime is committed; each time, everyone is a suspect, and everyone has a perfect ​alibi​. With
second-class writers, there would often be ​failings​ in the plot. With Agatha Christie, there are
hardly any. There is just one vital clue that only the detective, and the very ​astute​ reader, can
pick up.
Although Agatha Christie is certainly the best-known English writer of the twentieth century,
her name is strangely absent from books about twentieth century "literature", as if detective
fiction were not a ​genre​ worth talking about. In some cases, that may be true; but Agatha
Christie was more than just a detective writer. She was a literary phenomenon, and her books
and plays give a panoramic view of the world in which she moved
Besides, Agatha Christie has had a huge influence on many other writers and dramatists
across the world, and most modern crime writers admit their admiration for Agatha Christie.
Ian Rankin, author of the very popular ​Inspector Rebus​ novels, said: "The thing about Agatha
Christie is she has done it all…Christie was the beginning and the end of the crime novel."

The Mousetrap
Shakespeare would be very jealous.​ None of his plays has ever run for as long as "The
Mousetrap". Indeed, no other play has ever run for anything like as long as this detective thriller
by Agatha Christie.
The play opened at the Ambassador's Theatre in London in 1952, and it has been running
ever since. The 26,500th performance took place in May 2017, and in this time, the play has
been seen by over ten million people! The actors, of course, have changed regularly; the play
has even moved from theatre to theatre! But in spite of all that, the play just goes on, and on.
Indeed, it has become something of an institution, and many people wonder if it will not become
as permanent a feature of London as the Houses of Parliament, or the Tower. One thing is
certain; the trap will continue to be set every night for a long time yet. Audiences will continue to
sit in suspense, to learn "​whodunnit​"! Tickets for the show are still selling well.
WORDS
according to: ​ as is said in ​- fiction: ​invented stories ​- romance : ​romantic fiction, love
stories -​novel: ​invented story -​ lasting: ​continuing​ - genteel: ​polite, bourgeois​ - sheltered :
out of contact with -​ discreet: ​quiet​ - alter ego: ​(latin) - other person​ - elderly : ​old​ - solve:
find the answer ​- genius: ​very clever person​ - play: ​a show in a theatre​ - deserve: ​merit​ -
alibi : ​proof that one was somewhere else​ - failings: ​weaknesses​ - astute: s​ harp, clever​ -
genre: ​a form, a type ​- a whodunnit: ​a detective story (who has done it)..

STUDENTS' WORKSHEET

Word order exercise .

Put the words back into the correct order for each of the sentences below, and replace any
missing punctuation..

as the only creator of a quarter Agatha Potter, J.K.Christie has many books
about Harry Rowling sold as

Agatha Christie's many of different novels and plays take in basically

situations place , although each one similar is .

many huge writers has had a influence across Agatha Christie on the world
and other dramatists .

Indeed, as Agatha Christie has run by this detective thriller for ever like no
other play anything as long

as many of people will not become the wonder of London if it* a permanent
feature as Houses Parliament

* the Mousetrap