Agatha Christie bibliography

Agatha Christie bibliography

Agatha Christie
Releases
↙Novels	73
↙Collections	28
↙Poems	3
↙Plays	16
↙Broadcast works	7
↙As editor	1
↙Autobiography	2

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright. Although she wrote six romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, her reputation rests on the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections that she wrote under her own name, which have sold over two billion copies—an amount only surpassed by the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare.^[1] Her works contain several regular characters with whom the public became familiar, including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Parker Pyne and Harley Quin.^[2][1] Christie wrote more Poirot stories than any of the others, even though she thought the character to be "rather insufferable".^[2] Following the publication of the 1975 novel Curtain, Poirot's obituary appeared on the front page of The New York Times.^[3][4] The literary historian Howard Haycraft considered that "few fictional sleuths can surpass the amazing little Belgian—with his waxed moustache and egg-shaped head, his inflated confidence in the infallibility of his 'little grey cells', his murderous attacks on the English language—either for individuality or ingenuity."^[5]

Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon. She met her future husband just before the First World War;^{[lower-alpha 1]} after he was sent to the Western Front, she worked with the Voluntary Aid Detachment, and in the chemist dispensary, giving her a working background knowledge of medicines and poisons.^[2] Christie's writing career began during the war after she was challenged by her sister to write a detective story; she produced The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was turned down by two publishers before it was eventually published in 1920.^[2][6] Following the limited success of the novel, she continued to write and steadily built up a fan base for what Contemporary Authors calls "her unfailingly clever plots".^[1] She went on to write over a hundred works, including further novels, short stories and plays. Additionally she wrote two volumes of poetry, two autobiographical books and six romantic works under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.^[7] One of Christie's plays, The Mousetrap, opened in West End theatre in 1952 and, as at September 2015, was still running; in 2009 the London run exceeded 25,000 performances.^[8] In September 2015 a public vote identified And Then There Were None—originally published in 1939 under the name Ten Little Niggers—as the public's favourite Christie novel; the book was the writer's favourite, and the one she found most difficult to write.^[9]

In September 1930 Christie married the archaeologist Max Mallowan, whom she met when she visited the excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. The pair travelled frequently on expeditions, where Christie would help with the finds, and she used the experiences as a basis for her plots, including Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Murder in Mesopotamia 1936) and Death on the Nile (1937). She also wrote the autobiographical travel book Come, Tell Me How You Live (1946), which described their life in Syria; her biographer, Janet Morgan, reports that "archaeologists have celebrated ... [Christie's] contribution to Near Eastern exploration".^[2] Christie died in January 1976, her reputation as a crime novelist high.^[10] Her biographer, H. R. F. Keating, describes Christie as "a towering figure in the history of crime literature",^[11] while her obituarist in The Times considers that, following the death of Dorothy L. Sayers in 1957, Christie was "the undoubted queen of her profession".^[12]

Novels

First edition cover of The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in 1920

Initially in chronological order by UK publication date, even when the book was published first in the US or serialised in a magazine in advance of publication in book form.

Short story collections

Agatha Christie as a girl, date unknown

Many of Christie's stories first appeared in journals, newspapers and magazines.^[18] This list consists of the published collections of stories, in chronological order by UK publication date, even when the book was published first in the US or serialised in a magazine in advance of publication in book form.

Miscellany

Christie with her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan

Broadcast works

Blue plaque, at her former residence, 58 Sheffield Terrace, Kensington, London

Several of Christie's works have been adapted for stage and screen; the following is a list of only those works directly adapted by her or by a group of which she was a member.^[20]

Stage works

Blue plaque for The Mousetrap at St Martin's Theatre, London

From left: Louis Hayward, C. Aubrey Smith, Barry Fitzgerald, Richard Haydn, Mischa Auer and Walter Huston in the 1945 film And Then There Were None, which was based on the 1943 play Ten Little Niggers.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Sources