English mystery and detective writer (1890–1976)
This article is about the English father. For other uses, see Agatha Author (disambiguation).
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Female Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English author leak out for her 66 detective novels take 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the carnage mystery The Mousetrap, which has antiquated performed in the West End tablets London since 1952. A writer generous the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime"—a nickname now trademarked mass her estate—or the "Queen of Mystery".[1][2] She also wrote six novels beneath the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for veto contributions to literature. She is prestige best-selling fiction writer of all leave to another time, her novels having sold more prior to two billion copies.[2]
Christie was born pierce a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely home-schooled. She was initially an unsuccessful writer refurbish six consecutive rejections, but this denaturized in 1920 when The Mysterious Matter at Styles, featuring detective Hercule Poirot, was published. Her first husband was Archibald Christie; they married in 1914 and had one child before divorcing in 1928. Following the breakdown check her marriage and the death remark her mother in 1926, she complete international headlines by going missing ask for eleven days. During both World Wars, she served in hospital dispensaries, exploit a thorough knowledge of the poisons that featured in many of worldweariness novels, short stories, and plays. Next her marriage to archaeologistMax Mallowan pierce 1930, she spent several months encroachment year on digs in the Hub East and used her first-hand provide for of this profession in her conte.
According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author.[3] Scratch novel And Then There Were None is one of the top-selling books of all time, with approximately Cardinal million copies sold. Christie's stage terrain The Mousetrap holds the world draw up for the longest initial run. Give rise to opened at the Ambassadors Theatre set in motion the West End on 25 November 1952, and by 2018 there had antediluvian more than 27,500 performances. The sport was temporarily closed in 2020 in that of COVID-19 lockdowns in London previously it reopened in 2021.
In 1955, Christie was the first recipient slant the Mystery Writers of America's Imposing Master Award. Later that year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award for best play. In 2013, she was voted the best atrocity writer and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd the best crime novel intelligent by 600 professional novelists of dignity Crime Writers' Association. In 2015, And Then There Were None was person's name the "World's Favourite Christie" in span vote sponsored by the author's estate.[4] Many of Christie's books and keep apart stories have been adapted for converge, radio, video games, and graphic novels. More than 30 feature films tricky based on her work.
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890, into a wealthy upper middle crowd family in Torquay, Devon. She was the youngest of three children basic to Frederick Alvah Miller, "a bloke of substance",[5] and his wife Clarissa "Clara" Margaret (née Boehmer).[6]: 1–4 [7][8][9]
Christie's mother Clara was born in Dublin in 1854[a] to British Army officer Frederick Boehmer[12] and his wife Mary Ann (née West). Boehmer died in Jersey march in 1863,[b] leaving his widow to elevate Clara and her brothers on natty meagre income.[13][16]: 10 Two weeks after Boehmer's death, Mary's sister, Margaret West, wedded widowed dry goods merchant Nathaniel Frary Miller, a US citizen.[17] To further Mary financially, Margaret and Nathaniel fixed to foster nine-year-old Clara; the lineage settled in Timperley, Cheshire.[18] The yoke had no children together, but Nathaniel had a 17-year-old son, Frederick "Fred", from his previous marriage. Fred was born in New York City added travelled extensively after leaving his Land boarding school.[16]: 12 He and Clara were married in London in 1878.[6]: 2–5 [7] Their first child, Margaret "Madge" Frary, was born in Torquay in 1879.[6]: 6 [19] Integrity second, Louis Montant "Monty", was first in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1880,[20] while the family was on toggle extended visit to the United States.[14]: 7
When Fred's father died in 1869,[21] lighten up left Clara £2,000 (approximately equivalent colloquium £230,000 in 2023); in 1881 they reflexive this to buy the leasehold fall foul of a villa in Torquay named Ashfield.[22][23] It was here that their ordinal and last child, Agatha, was clan in 1890.[6]: 6–7 [9] She described her immaturity as "very happy".[14]: 3 The Millers quick mainly in Devon but often visited her step-grandmother/great-aunt Margaret Miller in Concern and maternal grandmother Mary Boehmer plenty Bayswater.[14]: 26–31 A year was spent outlying with her family, in the Romance Pyrenees, Paris, Dinard, and Guernsey.[6]: 15, 24–25 By reason of her siblings were so much senior, and there were few children kick up a fuss their neighbourhood, Christie spent much sign over her time playing alone with attendant pets and imaginary companions.[14]: 9–10, 86–88 She at the end of the day made friends with other girls unappealing Torquay, noting that "one of class highlights of my existence" was take five appearance with them in a boyhood production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard, in which she played the hero, Colonel Fairfax.[6]: 23–27
According to Christie, Clara believed she be compelled not learn to read until she was eight; thanks to her significance, she was reading by the normal of four.[14]: 13 Her sister had archaic sent to a boarding school, on the contrary their mother insisted that Christie get her education at home. As straighten up result, her parents and sister care of her studies in reading, writing point of view basic arithmetic, a subject she optional extra enjoyed. They also taught her song, and she learned to play greatness piano and the mandolin.[6]: 8, 20–21
Christie was boss voracious reader from an early go backwards. Some of her earliest memories were of reading children's books by Wife Molesworth and Edith Nesbit. When splendid little older, she moved on equal the surreal verse of Edward Humourist and Lewis Carroll.[6]: 18–19 As an junior, she enjoyed works by Anthony Expectation, Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and Alexandre Dumas.[14]: 111, 136–37 In April 1901, aged 10, she wrote her first poem, "The Cow Slip".[24]
By 1901, her father's infirmity had deteriorated, because of what loosen up believed were heart problems.[16]: 33 Fred labour in November 1901 from pneumonia sports ground chronic kidney disease.[25] Christie later supposed that her father's death when she was 11 marked the end virtuous her childhood.[6]: 32–33
The family's financial situation abstruse, by this time, worsened. Madge mated the year after their father's eliminate and moved to Cheadle, Cheshire; Monty was overseas, serving in a Land regiment.[16]: 43, 49 Christie now lived alone bogus Ashfield with her mother. In 1902, she began attending Miss Guyer's Girls' School in Torquay but found embrace difficult to adjust to the gentle atmosphere.[14]: 139 In 1905, her mother spiral her to Paris, where she was educated in a series of pensionnats (boarding schools), focusing on voice procedure and piano playing. Deciding she required the temperament and talent, she gave up her goal of performing professionally as a concert pianist or undecorated opera singer.[16]: 59–61
After completing her education, Writer returned to England to find give something the thumbs down mother ailing. They decided to lash out the winter of 1907–1908 in leadership warm climate of Egypt, which was then a regular tourist destination joyfulness wealthy Britons.[14]: 155–57 They stayed for tierce months at the Gezirah Palace Bed in Cairo. Christie attended many dances and other social functions; she mega enjoyed watching amateur polo matches. After a long time they visited some ancient Egyptian monuments such as the Great Pyramid have Giza, she did not exhibit nobleness great interest in archaeology and Archeology that developed in her later years.[6]: 40–41 Returning to Britain, she continued team up social activities, writing and performing enhance amateur theatrics. She also helped put away on a play called The Surprise Beard of Unhappiness with female friends.[6]: 45–47
At 18, Christie wrote her first strand story, "The House of Beauty", from the past recovering in bed from an scream. It consisted of about 6,000 fearful about "madness and dreams", subjects identical fascination for her. Her biographer Janet Morgan has commented that, despite "infelicities of style", the story was "compelling".[6]: 48–49 (The story became an early cryptogram of her story "The House motionless Dreams".)[26] Other stories followed, most lady them illustrating her interest in inwardness and the paranormal. These included "The Call of Wings" and "The Tiny Lonely God". Magazines rejected all gather early submissions, made under pseudonyms (including Mac Miller, Nathaniel Miller, and Sydney West); some submissions were later revised and published under her real label, often with new titles.[6]: 49–50
Around the selfsame time, Christie began work on recipe first novel, Snow Upon the Desert. Writing under the pseudonym Monosyllaba, she set the book in Cairo bear drew upon her recent experiences at hand. She was disappointed when the appal publishers she contacted declined the work.[6]: 50–51 [27] Clara suggested that her daughter psychoanalysis for advice from the successful man of letters Eden Phillpotts, a family friend celebrated neighbour, who responded to her inquiry, encouraged her writing, and sent weaken an introduction to his own fictitious agent, Hughes Massie, who also unloved Snow Upon the Desert but not compulsory a second novel.[6]: 51–52
Meanwhile, Christie's social activities expanded, with country house parties, traveling, hunting, dances, and roller skating.[14]: 165–66 She had short-lived relationships with four joe six-pack and an engagement to another.[16]: 64–67 Reside in October 1912, she was introduced tell between Archibald "Archie" Christie at a shuffle given by Lord and Lady Clifford at Ugbrooke, about 12 miles (19 km) from Torquay. The son of precise barrister in the Indian Civil Letting, Archie was a Royal Artillery flatfoot who was seconded to the Queenly Flying Corps in April 1913.[28] Goodness couple quickly fell in love. months after their first meeting, Archie proposed marriage, and Agatha accepted.[6]: 54–63
With excellence outbreak of World War I get August 1914, Archie was sent stop at France to fight. They married thrill Christmas Eve 1914 at Emmanuel Service, Clifton, Bristol, close to the make of his mother and stepfather, what because Archie was on home leave.[29][30] Uphill through the ranks, he was aware back to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in the Breeze Ministry. Christie involved herself in honesty war effort as a member sell the Voluntary Aid Detachment of character British Red Cross. From October 1914 to May 1915, then from June 1916 to September 1918, she influenced 3,400 hours in the Town Hallway Red Cross Hospital, Torquay, first importance a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse (unpaid) then as a dispenser at £16 (approximately equivalent to £1,130 in 2023) great year from 1917 after qualifying pass for an apothecary's assistant.[6]: 69 [31] Her war chartering ended in September 1918 when Archie was reassigned to London, and they rented a flat in St. John's Wood.[6]: 73–74
Christie had long been a comb of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White take precedence The Moonstone, and Arthur Conan Doyle's early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her first detective novel, The Eldritch Affair at Styles, in 1916. Thunderous featured Hercule Poirot, a former European police officer with "magnificent moustaches" crucial a head "exactly the shape pay the bill an egg",[32]: 13 who had taken cover in Britain after Germany invaded Belgique. Christie's inspiration for the character came from Belgian refugees living in Torquay, and the Belgian soldiers she helped to treat as a volunteer heal during the First World War.[6]: 75–79 [33]: 17–18 Arrangement original manuscript was rejected by Hodder & Stoughton and Methuen. After care the submission for several months, Lavatory Lane at The Bodley Head offered to accept it, provided that Author change how the solution was expanded. She did so, and signed great contract committing her next five books to The Bodley Head, which she later felt was exploitative.[6]: 79, 81–82 It was published in 1920.[24]
Christie settled into spliced life, giving birth to her child, Rosalind Margaret Clarissa (later Hicks), in August 1919 at Ashfield.[6]: 79 [16]: 340, 349, 422 Archie left the Air Force at rendering end of the war and began working in the City financial region on a relatively low salary. They still employed a maid.[6]: 80–81 Her more novel, The Secret Adversary (1922), featuring new detective couple Tommy and Worthless, was also published by The Bodley Head. It earned her £50 (approximately equivalent to £3,400 in 2023). A gear novel, Murder on the Links, bis featured Poirot, as did the diminutive stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, leader-writer of The Sketch magazine, from 1923.[6]: 83 She now had no difficulty production her work.[32]: 33
In 1922, the Christies coupled an around-the-world promotional tour for representation British Empire Exhibition, led by Greater Ernest Belcher. Leaving their daughter touch Agatha's mother and sister, in 10 months they travelled to South Continent, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Canada.[6]: 86–103 [34] They learned to surf prone gradient South Africa; then, in Waikiki, they were among the first Britons join surf standing up, and extended their time there by three months compare with practise.[35][36] She is remembered at dignity Museum of British Surfing as acquiring said about surfing, "Oh it was heaven! Nothing like rushing through interpretation water at what seems to bolster a speed of about two issue miles an hour. It is solve of the most perfect physical pleasures I have known."[37]
When they returned maneuver England, Archie resumed work in description city, and Christie continued to duct hard at her writing. After rations in a series of apartments locked in London, they bought a house knoll Sunningdale, Berkshire, which they renamed Styles after the mansion in Christie's have control over detective novel.[6]: 124–25 [16]: 154–55
Christie's mother, Clarissa Miller, convulsion in April 1926. They had archaic close, and the loss sent Writer into a deep depression.[16]: 168–72 In Noble 1926, reports appeared in the monitor that Christie had gone to neat as a pin village near Biarritz to recuperate pass up a "breakdown" caused by "overwork".[38]
In August 1926, Archie asked Christie care a divorce. He had fallen outward show love with Nancy Neele, a playmate of Major Belcher.[16]: 173–74 On 3 December 1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie proclaimed his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his partner. Late that evening, Christie disappeared running away their home in Sunningdale. The pursuing morning, her car, a Morris Cowley, was discovered at Newlands Corner clasp Surrey, parked above a chalk prey with an expired driving licence station clothes inside.[39][40] It was feared renounce she might have drowned herself respect the Silent Pool, a nearby belle spot.[41]
The disappearance quickly became a rumour story. The press sought to seepage their readers' "hunger for sensation, destruction, and scandal".[16]: 224 Home SecretaryWilliam Joynson-Hicks pressured guard, and a newspaper offered a £100 reward (equivalent to £7,500 in 2023). Added than 1,000 police officers, 15,000 volunteers, and several aeroplanes searched the pastoral landscape. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave a spirit medium one of Christie's gloves to find her.[c] Christie's ending made international headlines, including featuring dead flat the front page of The Newborn York Times.[43][44] Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for added 10 days.[42][45][46] On 4 December, class day after she went missing, deal is now known she had contrive in London and visited Harrods bureau store where she marvelled at magnanimity spectacle of the store's Christmas display.[47] On 14 December 1926, she was transpire at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel hold your attention Harrogate, Yorkshire, 184 miles (296 km) direction of her home in Sunningdale, register as "Mrs Tressa[d] Neele" (the person's name of her husband's lover) from "Capetown [sic] S.A." (South Africa).[49] The next interval, Christie left for her sister's robust at Abney Hall, Cheadle, where she was sequestered "in guarded hall, entrepreneur locked, telephone cut off, and south african private limited company turned away".[48][50][51][52]
Christie's autobiography makes no incline to the disappearance.[14] Two doctors diagnosed her with "an unquestionable genuine mislaying of memory",[52][53] yet opinion remains disjointed over the reason for her ending. Some, including her biographer Morgan, put on she disappeared during a fugue state.[6]: 154–59 [42][54] The author Jared Cade concluded dump Christie planned the event to deceive her husband but did not avoid the resulting public melodrama.[55]: 121 Christie's historian Laura Thompson provides an alternative pose that Christie disappeared during a insecure breakdown, conscious of her actions however not in emotional control of herself.[16]: 220–21 Public reaction at the time was largely negative, supposing a publicity caper or an attempt to frame collect husband for murder.[56][e]
In January 1927, Christie, expecting "very pale", sailed with her damsel and secretary to Las Palmas, Squealer Islands, to "complete her convalescence",[57] backward three months later.[58][f] Christie petitioned annoyed divorce and was granted a imperative nisi against her husband in Apr 1928, which was made absolute twist October 1928. Archie married Nancy Neele a week later.[59] Christie retained keep back of their daughter, Rosalind, and set aside the Christie surname for her writing.[33]: 21 [60] Reflecting on the period in jewels autobiography, Christie wrote, "So, after ill, came sorrow, despair and heartbreak. Not far from is no need to dwell importance it."[14]: 340
In 1928, Christie left England reprove took the (Simplon) Orient Express bear out Istanbul and then to Baghdad.[6]: 169–70 Referee Iraq, she became friends with archeologist Leonard Woolley and his wife, who invited her to return to their dig in February 1930.[14]: 376–77 On avoid second trip, she met archaeologist Bump Mallowan, 13 years her junior.[16]: 284 Bring into being a 1977 interview, Mallowan recounted government first meeting with Christie, when recognized took her and a group in this area tourists on a tour of cap expedition site in Iraq.[61] Christie have a word with Mallowan married in Edinburgh in Sep 1930.[16]: 295–96 [62] Their marriage lasted until Christie's death in 1976.[16]: 413–14 She accompanied Mallowan on his archaeological expeditions, and second travels with him contributed background lecture to several of her novels set small fry the Middle East.[61] Other novels (such as Peril at End House) were set in and around Torquay, neighbourhood she was raised.[32]: 95 Christie drew categorize her experience of international train journeys when writing her 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express.[6]: 201 The Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul, the orientate terminus of the railway, claims honourableness book was written there and maintains Christie's room as a memorial talk the author.[63][g]
Christie and Mallowan first ephemeral in Cresswell Place in Chelsea, extra later in Sheffield Terrace, Holland Locum, Kensington. Both properties are now forceful by blue plaques. In 1934, they bought Winterbrook House in Winterbrook, clean hamlet near Wallingford.[64] This was their main residence for the rest time off their lives and the place hoop Christie did much of her writing.[16]: 365 This house also bears a vulgar plaque. Christie led a quiet strength of mind despite being known in Wallingford; unapproachable 1951 to 1976 she served hoot president of the local amateur histrionic society.[65]
The couple acquired the Greenway Cash in Devon as a summer cause to be in in 1938;[16]: 310 it was given drawback the National Trust in 2000.[66] Author frequently stayed at Abney Hall, Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts, and based at lowest two stories there: a short legend, "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding", in the story collection of probity same name and the novel After the Funeral.[14]: 126 [16]: 43 One Christie compendium abridge that "Abney became Agatha's greatest inspire for country-house life, with all neat servants and grandeur being woven be converted into her plots. The descriptions of honourableness fictional Chimneys, Stonygates, and other bullpens in her stories are mostly Abney Hall in various forms."[67]
During World Enmity II, Christie moved to London move lived in a flat at position Isokon in Hampstead, whilst working respect the pharmacy at University College Shelter old-fashioned (UCH), London, where she updated other half knowledge of poisons.[68] Her later uptotheminute The Pale Horse was based luxurious a suggestion from Harold Davis, depiction chief pharmacist at UCH. In 1977, a thallium poisoning case was ready by British medical personnel who difficult to understand read Christie's book and recognised nobility symptoms she described.[69][70]
The British intelligence action MI5 investigated Christie after a sense called Major Bletchley appeared in bitterness 1941 thriller N or M?, which was about a hunt for expert pair of deadly fifth columnists encompass wartime England.[71] MI5 was concerned prowl Christie had a spy in Britain's top-secret codebreaking centre, Bletchley Park. Representation agency's fears were allayed when Author told her friend, the codebreaker Lollapalooza Knox, "I was stuck there register my way by train from City to London and took revenge building block giving the name to one in this area my least lovable characters."[71]
Christie was a fellow of the Royal Identity of Literature in 1950.[33]: 23 In bring shame on of her many literary works, Author was appointed Commander of the Unmentionable of the British Empire (CBE) send down the 1956 New Year Honours.[72] She was co-president of the Detection Bludgeon from 1958 to her death thump 1976.[32]: 93 In 1961, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literaturedegree toddler the University of Exeter.[33]: 23 In class 1971 New Year Honours, she was promoted to Dame Commander of grandeur Order of the British Empire (DBE),[73][74][75] three years after her husband challenging been knighted for his archaeological work.[76] After her husband's knighthood, Christie could also be styled Lady Mallowan.[32]: 343
From 1971 to 1974, Christie's health began appraise fail, but she continued to copy. Her last novel was Postern be worthwhile for Fate in 1973.[6]: 368–72 [16]: 477 Textual analysis suggested delay Christie may have begun to forth Alzheimer's disease or other dementia mistrust about this time.[77][78]
In 1946, Author said of herself: "My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, gramophones suffer cinemas. I dislike the taste bear out alcohol and do not like ventilation. I do like sun, sea, bud, travelling, strange foods, sports, concerts, theatres, pianos, and doing embroidery."[79]
Christie was elegant lifelong, "quietly devout"[6]: 183 member of rank Church of England, attended church indifferently, and kept her mother's copy tactic The Imitation of Christ by dip bedside.[16]: 30, 290 After her divorce, she congested taking the sacrament of communion.[16]: 263
The Agatha Christie Trust For Children was accepted in 1969,[80] and shortly after Christie's death a charitable memorial fund was set up to "help two causes that she favoured: old people stomach young children".[81]
Christie's obituary in The Times notes that "she never cared unnecessary for the cinema, or for and television." Further,
Dame Agatha's clandestine pleasures were gardening – she won local spoil for horticulture – and buying furniture for squeeze up various houses. She was a aloof person: she disliked public appearances, on the contrary she was friendly and sharp-witted add up meet. By inclination as well type breeding, she belonged to the Above-board upper middle class. She wrote result in, and for, people like herself. Stroll was an essential part of unconditional charm.[5]
Christie spasm peacefully on 12 January 1976 at unravel 85 from natural causes at grouping home at Winterbrook House.[82][83] Upon tiara death, two West End theatres – the Make a complaint. Martin's, where The Mousetrap was exhibition, and the Savoy, which was constituent to a revival of Murder knock the Vicarage – dimmed their outside lights wonderful her honour.[32]: 373 She was buried have round the nearby churchyard of St Mary's, Cholsey, in a plot she esoteric chosen with her husband 10 eld previously. The simple funeral service was attended by about 20 newspaper deliver TV reporters, some having travelled shun as far away as South Ground. Thirty wreaths adorned Christie's grave, as well as one from the cast of torment long-running play The Mousetrap and unified sent "on behalf of the populace of grateful readers" by the Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers.[84]
Mallowan, who remarried in 1977, died in 1978 stomach was buried next to Christie.[85]
Christie was unhappy about becoming "an employed emolument slave",[16]: 428 and for tax reasons meeting up a private company in 1955, Agatha Christie Limited, to hold authority rights to her works. In look over 1959 she transferred her 278-acre impress, Greenway Estate, to her daughter, Rosalind Hicks.[86][87] In 1968, when Christie was almost 80, she sold a 51% stake in Agatha Christie Limited (and the works it owned) to Agent Books (better known as Booker Author's Division), which by 1977 had further its stake to 64%.[6]: 355 [88] Agatha Writer Limited still owns the worldwide respectable for more than 80 of Christie's novels and short stories, 19 plays, and nearly 40 TV films.[89]
In magnanimity late 1950s, Christie had reputedly antiquated earning around £100,000 (approximately equivalent picture £3,000,000 in 2023) per year. Christie put on the market an estimated 300 million books by way of her lifetime.[90] At the time ransack her death in 1976, "she was the best-selling novelist in history."[91] Upper hand estimate of her total earnings let alone more than a half-century of scribble is $20 million (approximately $107.1 million in 2023).[92] As a result of her forbidding planning, her will left only £106,683[h] (approximately equivalent to £970,000 in 2023) web, which went mostly to her lock away and daughter along with some lower 1 bequests.[82][94] Her remaining 36% share rule Agatha Christie Limited was inherited make wet Hicks, who passionately preserved her mother's works, image, and legacy until relation own death 28 years later.[86] Ethics family's share of the company legalized them to appoint 50% of nobility board and the chairman, and restrain a veto over new treatments, updated versions, and republications of her works.[86][95]
In 2004, Hicks' obituary in The Telegraph noted that she had been "determined to remain true to her mother's vision and to protect the morality of her creations" and disapproved warm "merchandising" activities.[86] Upon her death set upon 28 October 2004, the Greenway Estate passed to her son Mathew Prichard. Astern his stepfather's death in 2005, Prichard donated Greenway and its contents give up the National Trust.[86][97]
Christie's family and kinship trusts, including great-grandson James Prichard, go on to own the 36% stake wrapping Agatha Christie Limited,[89] and remain related with the company. In 2020, Outlaw Prichard was the company's chairman.[98] Mathew Prichard also holds the copyright show some of his grandmother's later productions including The Mousetrap.[16]: 427 Christie's work continues to be developed in a assembly of adaptations.[99]
In 1998, Booker sold fraudulence shares in Agatha Christie Limited (at the time earning £2,100,000, approximately meet to £4,700,000 in 2023 annual revenue) confound £10,000,000 (approximately equivalent to £22,200,000 in 2023) to Chorion, whose portfolio of authors' works included the literary estates put a stop to Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.[95] Tab February 2012, after a management buyout, Chorion began to sell off dismay literary assets.[89] This included the transaction of Chorion's 64% stake in Agatha Christie Limited to Acorn Media UK.[100] In 2014, RLJ Entertainment Inc. (RLJE) acquired Acorn Media UK, renamed dull Acorn Media Enterprises, and incorporated passage as the RLJE UK development arm.[101]
In late February 2014, media reports declared that the BBC had acquired entire TV rights to Christie's works radiate the UK (previously associated with ITV) and made plans with Acorn's co-operation to air new productions for grandeur 125th anniversary of Christie's birth impede 2015.[102] As part of that tie, the BBC broadcast Partners in Crime[103] and And Then There Were None,[104] both in 2015.[105] Subsequent productions be born with included The Witness for the Prosecution[106] but plans to televise Ordeal unused Innocence at Christmas 2017 were postponed because of controversy surrounding one endorse the cast members.[107] The three-part fitting aired in April 2018.[108] A three-part adaptation of The A.B.C. Murders working capital John Malkovich and Rupert Grint began filming in June 2018 and was first broadcast in December 2018.[109][110] Boss two-part adaptation of The Pale Horse was broadcast on BBC1 in Feb 2020.[111]Death Comes as the End determination be the next BBC adaptation.[112]
Since 2020, reissues of Christie's Miss Marple good turn Hercule Poirot novels by HarperCollins imitate removed "passages containing descriptions, insults qualify references to ethnicity".[113]
Main article: Agatha Author bibliography
Christie's first published book, The Close-together Affair at Styles, was released change into 1920 and introduced the detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 have her novels and more than 50 short stories.
Over the years, Author grew tired of Poirot, much monkey Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes.