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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Agatha Christie
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(Agatha Miller, 1890–1976, m. Archibald Christie 1914, DBE 1971) The most successful English writer of detective fiction since *Conan Doyle, and the creator of two very different detectives – the Belgian Hercule Poirot, who featured in her first book (The Mysterious Affair at Styles 1920) and the elderly Miss Marple, who made her bow in The Murder at the Vicarage (1930). Both have become widely known to film and television audiences.
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Their author's reputation was firmly established in 1926 with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. According to the Guinness Book of Records she is the all-time bestselling writer of fiction; her 78 crime novels are estimated to have sold two billion copies in 44 languages.
Agatha Christie was also a phenomenally successful playwright, most notably with Witness for the Prosecution (1953) and The *Mousetrap. After her first marriage ended in divorce, she married Max Mallowan, an archaeologist. A famous mystery in her own life was a much publicized and still unexplained disappearance for a few days in 1926.
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