Author

Agatha Christie

1890–1976 3 volumes Mystery & Crime

The life

Agatha Christie was an English writer and the best-selling novelist of all time, with some two billion copies in print. She learned her poisons as a hospital dispenser in both world wars, and used that knowledge in the debut that introduced Hercule Poirot. In 1926 she vanished for eleven days, prompting a national search she never afterwards explained. Her play The Mousetrap has run continuously since 1952.

Where to start

The Big Four

160 pages — the shortest way into Christie, not the greatest.

I have met people who enjoy a channel crossing; men who can sit calmly in their deck-chairs and, on arrival, wait until the boat is moored, then gather their belongings together without fuss and disembark.

Paintings from these volumes