Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the world's best-known mystery writer. The Guinness Book of Records listed her as the best-selling fiction author of all time with an estimated two billion copies of her works sold; a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 45 foreign languages. It is often said that she is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.

Agatha Miller was born in Torquay, England on September 15, 1890. In 1914 she married Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple had one daughter, Rosalind, before their divorce in 1928.

In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, Agatha Christie wrote 80 novels and short story collections. She also wrote over a dozen plays, including The Mousetrap, which opened in London on November 25, 1952, and is now the longest continuously running play in theatrical history and And Then There Were None, which opened in a new adaptation in 2005.

Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), was also the first to feature her eccentric Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Surely one of the most famous fictional creations of all time, Poirot's 'little grey cells' triumphed over devious criminals in 33 novels and 54 short stories. Christie's last published novel, Sleeping Murder (1976), featured her other world-famous sleuth, the shrewdly inquisitive Miss Jane Marple of St. Mary Mead. Miss Marple was created more than 75 years ago, and she has appeared in twelve novels, as well as 20 short stories, since her debut in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.

Both Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple have been widely dramatized in feature films and made-for-TV movies. Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), And Then There Were None (1945), and Death on the Nile (1978) are a few of the successful films based on her works.

Agatha Christie also wrote six romantic novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. She wrote nonfiction as well—four books including Agatha Christie: An Autobiography and an entertaining account of the many archeological expeditions she shared with her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan. In 1971, she achieved her country's highest honor when she received the Order of Dame Commander of the British Empire. Agatha Christie died peacefully at home on January 12, 1976 after a short cold.

Hercule Poirot books

1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
2. The Murder on the Links (1923) 
3. Poirot Investigates (1924) 
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) 
5. The Big Four (1927)
6. The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
7. Black Coffee (1961)
8. Peril at End House (1932)
9. Lord Edgware Dies (1933) aka Thirteen at Dinner
10. Murder on the Orient Express (1934) aka Murder in the Calais Coach
11. Three Act Tragedy (1934) aka Murder in Three Acts
12. Death in the Clouds (1935) aka Death in the Air
13. The ABC Murders (1936)
14. Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
15. Cards on the Table (1936)
16. Dumb Witness (1937) aka Poirot Loses a Client
17. Death on the Nile (1937)
18. Murder in the Mews (1937) aka Dead Man's Mirror
19. Appointment with Death (1938)
20. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938) aka A Holiday for Murder / Murder for Christmas
21. Sad Cypress (1940) IMAGE
22. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940) aka An Overdose of Death / The Patriotic Murders
23. Evil Under the Sun (1941)
24. Five Little Pigs (1942) aka Murder in Retrospect
25. The Hollow (1946) aka Murder after Hours
26. The Labours of Hercules (1947)
27. Taken at the Flood (1948) aka There Is a Tide
28. Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952) aka Blood Will Tell
29. After the Funeral (1953) aka Funerals Are Fatal
30. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955) or, Hickory Dickory Death
31. Dead Man's Folly (1956)
32. Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
33. The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960)
34. The Clocks (1963)
35. Third Girl (1966)
36. Hallowe'en Party (1969)
37. Elephants Can Remember (1972)
38. Poirot's Early Cases (1974) aka Hercule Poirot's Early Cases NEW
39. Curtain (1975)

Tommy and Tuppence

1. The Secret Adversary (1922) NEW
2. Partners in Crime (1929)
3. N or M? (1941) NEW
4. By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968)
5. Postern of Fate (1973)

Miss Marple

1. The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
2. The Body in the Library (1942)
3. The Moving Finger (1942)
4. A Murder Is Announced (1950)
5. They Do It with Mirrors (1952) aka Murder with Mirrors
6. A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)
7. 4.50 from Paddington (1957) aka What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw
8. The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1961)
9. A Caribbean Mystery (1964)
10. At Bertram's Hotel (1965) 
11. Nemesis (1971)
12. Sleeping Murder (1976)
13. Complete Short Stories
    Clues for Miss Marple (1977) 
    The Thirteen Problems (1932) aka The Tuesday Club Murder
    Miss Marple and Mystery (2008)

NOVELS

• Giant's Bread (1930) (as by Mary Westmacott)
• The Sittaford Mystery (1931) aka Murder at Hazelmoor ENT
• Unfinished Portrait (1934) (as by Mary Westmacott)
• Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1935) aka The Boomerang Clue ENT
• And then there were None (1939) aka Ten Little Indians DONE
• Absent in the Spring (1944) (as by Mary Westmacott)
• Death Comes as the End (1944) ENT
• The Rose and the Yew Tree (1948) (as by Mary Westmacott)
• Crooked House (1949) ENT
• They Came to Baghdad (1951)  DONE
• A Daughter's a Daughter (1952) (as by Mary Westmacott)
• Destination Unknown (1954) aka So Many Steps to Death ENT
• The Burden (1956) (as by Mary Westmacott)
• Ordeal by Innocence (1958) DONE
• The Pale Horse (1961) ENT
• Endless Night (1967) ENT
• Passenger to Frankfurt (1970) ENT
• The Unexpected Guest (2008) (with Charles Osborne) ENT