Ep. 91: Agatha Christie – Top 6 Books
Intro
Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.
Today's episode is on the GOAT of fiction writing Agatha Christie. Her novels have sold more than two billion copies worldwide and her stage play “The Mousetrap” holds the world record for the longest initial run, only stopped temporarily due to the lockdowns.
Her characters are famous, particularly Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, along with the intricate plots and surprising twists and turns she takes you on, to eventually find out in the end who done-it.
Todays mnemonic is Agatha Christie’s top 6 books.
So, with no further ado, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Summary
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 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 murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Christie was born into a wealthy upper middle class family in Torquay, Devon, and was largely home-schooled. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed in 1920 when The Mysterious Affair 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 of her marriage and the death of her mother in 1926 she made international headlines by going missing for eleven days. During both World Wars, she served in hospital dispensaries, acquiring a thorough knowledge of the poisons that featured in many of her novels, short stories, and plays. Following her marriage to archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930, she spent several months each year on digs in the Middle East and used her first-hand knowledge of this profession in her fiction.
According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author.[1] Her novel And Then There Were None is one of the top-selling books of all time, with approximately 100 million copies sold. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the world record for the longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End on 25 November 1952, and by September 2018 there had been more than 27,500 performances. The play was temporarily closed in March 2020 because of COVID-19 lockdowns in London before it reopened in May 2021.
In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award. Later that year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award for best play. In 2013, she was voted the best crime writer and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd the best crime novel ever by 600 professional novelists of the Crime Writers' Association. In September 2015, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate.[2] Many of Christie's books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games, and graphic novels. More than 30 feature films are based on her work.
Above information extracted from Wikipedia – link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie]
Mnemonic
Agatha Christie – Top 6 Books Mnemonic – MMMAD Agatha
(Picture Agatha Christie perceived as being mad by the public, as she was when she went missing for 11 days)
1. Murder on the Orient Express
2. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
3. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
4. The A.B.C. Murders
5. Death on the Nile
6. And Then There Were None
Five Fun Facts
1. Agatha Christie’s most famous characters were Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Hercule Poirot was based on the Belgium police officer Jacques Hornais and Miss Marple, was inspired by her maternal grandmother.
2. Christie wrote six semi-autobiographical novels under the Pseudonym Mary Westmacott. For nearly 20 years the fact that she was the author, remained a secret.
3. Along with writing novels Christie also wrote over 30 plays. The Mousetrap is her most famous and is the longest running play in history on the west end.
4. Christie described “The Mystery of the Blue Train” as “easily the worst book I ever wrote”. She must have been in holiday mode as she wrote the book whilst she was visiting the Canary Islands.
5. In May 2000 at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention Christie was named Mystery Writer of the Century and the Poirot books, Mystery Series of the Century.
Three Question Quiz
Q.1. Agatha Christie is the only female dramatist to have several plays running simultaneously in London’s West End. How many plays did she have running? Options are three or four.
Q.2. Which year did Agatha Christie disappear for 11 days? Options are 1926, 1936 or 1946
Q.3. The character Hercule Poirot was from which country?
Bonus Q. What was Agatha Christie's first published novel? Options are The A.B.C Murders, Death on the Nile or The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Mnemonic Recap
Agatha Christie – Top 6 Books Mnemonic – MMMAD Agatha
(Picture Agatha Christie perceived as being mad by the public, as she was when she went missing for 11 days)
1. Murder on the Orient Express
2. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
3. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
4. The A.B.C. Murders
5. Death on the Nile
6. And Then There Were None
Three Question Quiz Answers
Q.1. Agatha Christie is the only female dramatist to have several plays running simultaneously in London’s West End. How many plays did she have running? Options are three or four.
A. Three
Q.2. Which year did Agatha Christie disappear for 11 days? Options are 1926, 1936 or 1946
A. 1926. Reasons for the disappearance range from a nervous breakdown from the death of her mother, the embarrassment of her husband’s affair, to a publicity stunt.
Q.3. The character Hercule Poirot was from which country?
A. Belgium
Bonus Q. What was Agatha Christie's first published novel? Options are The A.B.C Murders, Death on the Nile or The Mysterious Affair at Styles
A. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Now just speaking of first published novels. I’m not quite there yet but I’m starting to write a book about a tornado disaster. But as I said not quite finished yet; it’s just a draft at the moment!
Some people do ask me what’s it like to be an aspiring writer? I find it hard to explain; it’s difficult to put into words!
Word of the Week
chicanery
[ shi-key-nuh-ree ]
noun
trickery or deception by quibbling or the use of false arguments.
Example
To get to “who done it” in an Agatha Christie novel, much chicanery would ensue.
Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]
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References
https://www.trivianerd.com/collection/agatha-christie-trivia-questions
https://www.educationquizzes.com/specialist/books/author---agatha-christie-0001/