• Dame Agatha Christie is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Bestselling Author. With between 2 and 4 billion works sold, she is bested only by William Shakespeare and the Bible. Christie is also the most translated novelist in history.

• Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap has the longest theatrical run, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on November 25, 1952. It continues to this day.

• At one point in her successful career, Mrs. Christie actually owned eight different houses. Many of these houses were “used” as the houses in several of her novels.

• Charles Dickens was Agatha’s favorite author.

• Christie wrote her first detective story after being challenged by one of her older sisters.

• Six publishers rejected her first manuscript before it was eventually published in 1920. She eventually received £25 for it.

• During WWII, she worked in a hospital pharmacy. She there began acquiring a knowledge of poisons that would serve her novels well.

Enjoy a video with some interesting facts about her most famous character, Hercule Poirot in the video below.

The theme for this week is about Agatha Christie, who was an English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright.

She is the world’s best-selling mystery writer, and often referred to as the “Queen of Crime”, Agatha Christie is considered a master of suspense, plotting, and characterisation. She is also best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, Mr Satterthwaite, and Tommy and Tuppence.

Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, and more than thirty feature films have been based on her work.

Below is a clip from her most famous character, Hercule Poirot.