Agatha Christie Novels

Agatha Christie home page
Including biography and novel index

About this web site

WebMaster Gordon Tatler, a life-long fan of Agatha Christie, has put together details of all Agatha Christie's full length novels in the order they were written with plots and solutions (which are initially hidden, but may be viewed by clicking the relevant link at the end of each plot). If you print a page only the main details will print without menus, headers or footers.

Note

These novel summaries are presented in the accepted order in which they were written. However the final 2 novels (Curtain and Sleeping murder) were actually written during World War II, and were sealed in a bank vault until near the end of Agatha Christie's life.

Note also that, so far as can be ascertained, Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in the New York Times.

Agatha Christie

This wonderful lady is known throughout the world as the "Queen of Crime". Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language with another billion in 44 foreign languages and she is the most widely published author of all time in any language, out-sold by only the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 66 crime novels, 21 short story collections, 25 plays, and 6 novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Most of her books have been filmed, some many times over (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, 4.50 From Paddington), and many have been adapted for television and radio. Her stage play "The Mousetrap", based on a short story entitled "Three Blind Mice", holds the record for the longest run ever in London, opening at the Ambassadors Theatre on November 25, 1952 (over 20,000 performances to 2007).

Biography

Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (Lady Mallowan) DBE is known throughout the world as the Queen of crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language with another billion in 44 foreign languages and she is the most widely published author of all time in any language, out-sold by only the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 66 crime novels, 13 short story collections, 19 plays, and 6 novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Agatha Christie, born in Torquay on 15th September 1890, made a Dame in the 1971 honours list and died on 12th January 1976. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was written toward the end of the First World War, in which she served as a VAD. In it she created Hercules Poirot, the little Belgian detective who was destined to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes.

In 1926, after averaging a book a year, Agatha Christie wrote her masterpiece. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the first of her books to be published by Collins and marked the beginning of author-publisher relationship which lasted for fifty years and well over seventy books. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was also the first of Agatha Christie's books to be dramatized - under the name Alibi - and to have a successful run in the West End. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, is the longest-running play in history.

Her stage play The Mousetrap, based on a short story entitled "Three Blind Mice", holds the record for the longest run ever in London, opening at the Ambassadors Theatre on November 25, 1952, and as of 2007 is still running after more than 20,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year, Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA, for Best Play. Most of her books and short stories have been filmed, some many times over (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, 4.50 From Paddington), and many have been adapted for television and radio.

In 1971 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Her last book to be published in 1976 was Sleeping Murder, featuring the deceptively mild Miss Marple.