Agatha Christie

August 2007

 Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976) is widely credited with creating the best known and most durable of detective stories in English Literature history. A prolific writer, whose work includes numerous plays, short stories and romances, she is without doubt most remembered for her sixty-six detective novels.

Affectionately known as the ‘Queen of Crime’, much of Christie’s success stemmed from the creation of two of the most distinctive and lasting detective figures since Sherlock Holmes – Hercule Poirot and Miss (Jane) Marple.

Poirot was introduced to the British public in The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) and proved to be an instant success. Over the years, it is said that Christie grew to detest the detective regarding him as “an ego-centric creep” but unlike Conan Doyle, she resisted any temptation to kill him off until after her own death. Curtain, in which Poirot is killed, was written in the 1940s but only released in late 1975. Miss Marple, whom Christie was said to prefer, made her first appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage (1930). Christie’s writing caught the public’s interest due to her unexpected twists of plot and, more than often, unlikely murderers including the narrator on several occasions.

Christie had a fairly solitary childhood as her siblings were much older. At the age of sixteen she left home to study music and art in Paris. She was active during the First World War, working at a hospital which may have influenced her later writing as many of the victims she cared for died of poisoning.

Her first marriage in 1914 to Colonel Archibald Christie was unhappy and with her divorce in 1928, critics tend to argue that Christie’s work improved dramatically and became even more ingenious. Her second marriage to the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan in 1930 caused a mini-scandal as Mallowan was fourteen years Christie’s junior and a Catholic. Christie’s subsequent travels with her new husband led to some of her best known detective stories set in the Middle East including Death on the Nile (1937).

Agatha Christie’s association with the publishing firm Williams Collins began in 1926 with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and virtually all her subsequent novels were published by the Collins Crime Club (not to be confused with Book Club editions). Crime Club dust jackets are now highly sought after especially from the inter-war years with their bright, eye-catching wrap around covers. An estimated one billion copies of her novels have been sold in English alone and justifiably the Guinness Book of Records proclaimed Christie to be the best selling author of all time. 

St. Mary’s Books and Prints is delighted currently to be able to offer thirty-one of Christie’s novels for sale. Of particular interest is a First Edition of Poirot’s last case, Curtain, as well as The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (First Edition) and numerous other well known titles. A complete list of our Agatha Christie stock can be accessed via our "Search Stock" facility.