Реферат: Agatha Christie /english/

Alexander V. Myskin, gr. 3o1

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie was sure the world’s best selling crime writer.
Moreover, she was an immensely prolific writer. 79 shot stories, 4
non-fiction ones and 19 plays were written by that strange woman. They
were translated into 136 languages. Over 3 billion books by Agatha
Christie were sold worldwide. She is popular for ingenuity of plots,
which are classical murder mysteries: marooned places and a
well-mannered murderer. Her way to present the stories was quite
definite from that of her colleagues. At first her stories appealed to
the readers’ detective inside, so you can’t find much blood and violence
in her stories.

Agatha Christie created two major characters for her stories. Hercule
Poirot, a Belgian, used to work in the Police, but by the time of the
action he was already retired. He can be described as a funny little man
taken by many readers as a comic. He had luxurious moustaches and he was
really proud of them.

Miss Marple was absolutely opposite to Poirot. She wasn’t a professional
and had never been one. She was just an old spinster, very modest but
perceptive and not a flamboyant personality, who acted as a detective
just by virtue of taking thought.

Agatha Christie’s favourite way of murdering was by poisoning. She
accurately described the process because she had learned a lot about
poisons and other chemicals during World War II, while working in a
hospital.

The reader has to solve the mystery and decide who the murderer is
hand-in-hand with the author. Most of the crimes were committed in some
closed surroundings with a limited number of people to suspect. Finally
the identity of the murderer is revealed and a hooked reader starts
looking for another book by Agatha Christie.

Agatha Christie lived between 1890 and 1976. She started writing stories
at a very early age, at first to entertain herself. However, she managed
to become famous. Not many people know that she used to write under a
pen-name of Mary Westmacott. Later, already being a world-known writer,
she tried to avoid publicity and stayed out of public eye.