Agatha Christie

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Agatha Christie is one of the most popular female writers of all time. She has written over ninety-six novels. She has written several plays, and seventeen of her novels have been made into major theatre productions; and even following the theatre productions they were then made into motion pictures. Christie is known widely as the “Queen of Crime”. Her work is very familiar to most literary scholars due to their complexity and the mystery of the book; it keeps you guessing the entire book up until the last few pages, they are often referred to as “whodunits”.

Agatha May Clarissa Miller was born on September 15, 1890. She was born in Torquay, UK. She was the youngest of her siblings, including an older brother and sister. Christie and her older sister stayed home while “Agatha’s brother was packed off to boarding school at an early age” (Smaridge 81). Agatha and her sister were not allowed to go to school due to it being very uncommon for girls during those years to go to school. Instead they had a tutor, also known as a governess, come to their house and help them receive some form of education.

Shortly after her brother was sent away to boarding school Agatha’s mother felt it necessary for her sister to be sent to an all girl boarding school as well. Luckily for Agatha her mother chose to keep her at home and become her personal tutor. As Smaridge says, “… her mother, who thought her daughters capable of anything, did not believe in aimless dreaming, even when a child was sick” (82). Her mother would encourage her to write stories when she had spare time, so that she was not just sitting around wasting time and brain power. “She wrote poetry, and she was interested in the soul” says Acocella. Agatha was very much inspired by...

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