Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, better known as Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976), is a British writer, specialist in detective novels. Nicknamed "the Queen of Crime", she was of crucial importance in the development of the genre and is one of the most famous authors in the world.
The Lonely Petit , first detective novel
Third child of Clarisse Margaret Boehmer, British, and Frederick Alvah Miller, American broker, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller is born September 15, 1890 in Torquay, southern England. Her brother and sister were sent to boarding school but she was brought up at home, educated by her parents and a governess. A great reader, she wrote poems, stories and short stories very early on.
In 1902, Agatha was sent to school in Torquay and then finished her education in Paris. Wanting to become an artist, she learned piano and singing but proved too shy to embrace this career and returned to Torquay. In 1910, she spent several months with her mother in Egypt; on her return, she began to write and direct plays. Writing several short stories related to the paranormal, she sends them to several journals but systematically receives refusals. Her sister then challenges her to write a crime novel and Agatha writes The Lonely Petit , a detective story set in Cairo. Again, his manuscript was refused. Eden Phillpotts, writer friend of the family, advises him however to persevere.
Writer, nurse and chemist
In 1912, Agatha met aviator Archibald Christie at a ball; they became engaged and married on Christmas Day 1914. They had a daughter in 1919. During the war, she worked as a volunteer nurse and then as a chemist's assistant, an experience from which she retained some knowledge of the remedies, poisons and drugs she will use in her novels. In her spare time, she writes The Mysterious Affair of Styles , which features his famous detective Hercule Poirot for the first time. In 1920, she found a publisher who accepted her manuscript and made her sign a contract for six novels.
In 1926, Agatha experienced a difficult period, between the death of her mother and the infidelity of her husband; she disappears for a few days and the police search for her for twelve days before finding her at the hotel. She never explained this disappearance and divorced her husband in 1928. In 1927, Agatha published her seventh novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd which is a real success and which makes her an important figure in the detective novel. She continues to write one or two books a year, notably around her characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.
Most translated writer in the world
In 1930, in the Middle East, Agatha Christie met archaeologist Max Mallowan; she marries him the same year and accompanies him in his excavations in Syria and Iraq, which she will use as a setting for her novels. In 1938, the couple moved to England. During the Second World War, in London, she worked as a preparer at the hospital and perfected her knowledge of poisons there. In 1955, she founded the Agatha Christie Limited (ACL) to manage its copyrights.
In 1975 and 1976, she wrote respectively the last riddle solved by Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Agatha Christie died on January 12, 1976. The most translated writer in the world and among the most widely read (still 4 million books sold per year), she wrote 66 novels, 154 short stories, 20 plays, an autobiography and poems. His influence on the detective genre is considerable.