47 Fun Facts About Agatha Christie

Which TV series blamed Christie's 1926 disappearance on a giant alien wasp?

Doctor Who's 2008 episode 'The Unicorn and the Wasp' has the Doctor and Donna help Christie solve a country-house murder on the day she vanishes.

In which English seaside town was Agatha Christie born in 1890?

In Torquay her mother thought children shouldn't learn to read until eight, but young Agatha taught herself to read years earlier.

About how many copies of Agatha Christie's books have been sold worldwide?

About 2 billion copies have sold, yet her first novel was turned down by several publishers before The Bodley Head accepted it.

What wartime job gave Christie her expert knowledge of poisons?

Working in hospital dispensaries, she qualified as an apothecary's assistant in 1917 and later put that poison lore into her plots.

When Christie vanished, which author took one of her gloves to a medium?

Arthur Conan Doyle hoped a medium could find her, while fellow crime writer Dorothy L. Sayers joined the search on the ground.

Where was Christie eventually found after her 1926 disappearance?

At a hydropathic hotel in Harrogate she had registered under the surname of her husband's mistress, Nancy Neele.

Christie's second husband, Max Mallowan, worked in which profession?

Archaeologist Max Mallowan took Christie on his digs in Syria and Iraq, and she chronicled camp life in the memoir Come, Tell Me How You Live.

Under what pseudonym did Christie publish six non-crime novels?

Mary Westmacott's true identity stayed secret for well over a decade before the press finally exposed it.

On a 1922 world tour, Christie and her first husband were among the first Britons known to do what?

They learned to ride boards lying down in South Africa, then began to surf standing up in Honolulu later that year.

In 1971 Christie was promoted to which honour?

Her husband had been knighted three years earlier, so she could also be styled Lady Mallowan.

In 1955 Christie became the first person to receive which honour from the Mystery Writers of America?

She was also co-president of the Detection Club from 1958 until her death.

Christie's holiday home on the River Dart, now owned by the National Trust, is called what?

During the Second World War, Greenway was requisitioned and housed child evacuees and then the US Coast Guard.

Hercule Poirot is a refugee from which country?

Belgium's wartime refugees gave Christie her idea: a former great Belgian policeman living in England would make a plausible detective.

What does Poirot famously call the mental faculties he relies on to solve cases?

Poirot trusts his little grey cells, and in The Murder on the Links he mocks a rival crawling after clues as 'the human foxhound'.

In 1975 Poirot became the first fictional character to receive what honour from The New York Times?

The front-page obituary ran in August 1975, weeks before Curtain, the novel in which Poirot dies, reached bookshops.

In Christie's stories, Poirot's London home and office is in which block of flats?

ITV filmed Whitehaven Mansions at Florin Court, an Art Deco block in London, so a 2013 fire there made news as a blaze at Poirot's home.

Which actor played Poirot on ITV for nearly 25 years?

David Suchet kept going until his 70 episodes had covered all the substantial Poirot stories, finishing in 2013.

In which novel did Poirot make his first appearance?

Christie wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles after her sister Madge doubted she could write a good detective story.

In Christie's first novel, Emily Inglethorp is poisoned with what?

Strychnine in her regular tonic turned deadly when an added bromide made it sink to the bottom, so the last dose killed her.

Poirot's friend and narrator Captain Hastings emigrates to which country after marrying?

After The Murder on the Links, Christie married Hastings off to Dulcie Duveen and sent the couple to run a ranch in Argentina.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is famous for what twist?

The narrator is the murderer, Dr Sheppard, a twist that helped shape crime fiction; in 2013 crime writers voted the book the best crime novel ever.

Who played Poirot on radio in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in 1939?

Orson Welles took two roles in the hour-long 1939 broadcast, voicing both Poirot and Dr Sheppard.

Under what title was Poirot's Orient Express case first published in the United States?

Murder in the Calais Coach was its American title, and the novel first appeared in America, as a Saturday Evening Post serial, before any British edition.

The kidnapping at the heart of Murder on the Orient Express was inspired by which real 1932 crime?

The Lindbergh baby kidnapping was still unsolved when the novel came out in 1934; police arrested Bruno Hauptmann that September.

In Death on the Nile, Poirot travels aboard which steamer?

Christie drew on her own travels in Egypt for the voyage, in which the Karnak carries Poirot up the Nile from Shellal to Wadi Halfa.

In The A.B.C. Murders, the killer's first victim, Alice Ascher, is killed in which town?

Andover is where the killer strikes first, after taunting Poirot with a written warning of the crime.

And Then There Were None is set on an isolated island off the coast of which county?

Soldier Island lies off Devon, and Christie drew on the county's Burgh Island, whose hotel she often visited.

In And Then There Were None, who turns out to be the killer?

Mr Justice Wargrave faked his own death with the doctor's unwitting help, then killed the doctor and carried on down his list.

In which fictional village does Miss Marple live?

In St Mary Mead Miss Marple studies village life, which she believes shows her the full range of human wickedness behind any crime.

Miss Marple's first full-length novel was which 1930 book?

The Murder at the Vicarage kills off Colonel Protheroe, a man so widely disliked that almost the whole village had a motive.

Which actress did Christie predict would play Marple?

Joan Hickson saw the prediction come true in 1984, when at 78 she became the BBC's Miss Marple, a role she kept until 1992.

Which actress played Miss Marple in four films between 1961 and 1964?

Margaret Rutherford's bold, eccentric Marple was nothing like the books' birdlike spinster, yet Christie dedicated The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side to her.

Christie's detective duo Tommy and Tuppence first appeared in which 1922 novel?

The Secret Adversary found them in their early twenties, and unlike Poirot or Marple they then aged in real time into their seventies.

Ariadne Oliver, Christie's self-caricature, is a crime novelist who created which detective?

Sven Hjerson, a Finn, is 'idiotic, but people like him', Mrs Oliver says, echoing Christie's own weariness with Poirot.

Christie's crime novelist Ariadne Oliver is famously fond of which fruit?

Apples are Mrs Oliver's weakness, and in Hallowe'en Party a girl who boasted of seeing a murder is drowned in an apple-bobbing tub.

The Mousetrap began life as a radio play written for the 80th birthday of whom?

Queen Mary's 1947 birthday play, Three Blind Mice, went out on the radio before Christie expanded it into The Mousetrap for the stage.

What does The Mousetrap ask audiences to do?

Audiences are asked to keep its secret, the killer's identity, and Christie gave the play's rights to her grandson Mathew Prichard for his ninth birthday.

Which future film director played Detective Sergeant Trotter in the original cast of The Mousetrap?

Richard Attenborough's Trotter arrived on skis at the snowbound guesthouse, run on stage by his real wife, Sheila Sim, as Mollie Ralston.

Curtain, Poirot's final case, was kept where until shortly before Christie's death?

In a bank vault: Christie wrote Curtain during the Second World War to be published after her death, yet it reached shops months before she died.

What did Christie clean Nimrud's ivories with?

Face cream, with a fine knitting needle and an orange stick, did the cleaning, and she photographed many of the finds too.

Which Istanbul hotel claims Murder on the Orient Express was written there and keeps Christie's room as a memorial?

The hotel sits at the eastern terminus of the railway Christie rode to Baghdad in 1928.

Who, famous for excavating Ur, befriended Christie in Iraq and invited her back to his dig?

Leonard Woolley's wife Katharine is said to have inspired the murder victim in Christie's novel Murder in Mesopotamia.

MI5 investigated Christie over a character named Major Bletchley in which 1941 thriller?

N or M? alarmed MI5, but Christie told codebreaker Dilly Knox she'd named Major Bletchley after a station where her train got stuck.

Which Christie novel helped a London nurse diagnose a poisoned toddler from Qatar?

The Pale Horse describes thallium poisoning so closely that a nurse who had read it recognised the same signs in the sick baby.

Which was Christie's last novel, published in 1973?

Postern of Fate closed a decline a 2009 University of Toronto study measured: her vocabulary shrank by 15 to 30 percent, hinting at dementia.

The title of The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side comes from which poet's work?

Alfred Tennyson's Lady of Shalott may see the world only in a mirror, and when she looks out at Lancelot, the curse falls.

Christie's home from 1934, where she wrote many of her books, was in a hamlet near which town?

Wallingford, where Christie lived for more than 40 years, unveiled a life-size bronze statue of her in 2023, seated on a bench with a book.