Aiden Beland

Who was Agatha Christie?

Agatha Christie is one of those authors who has stood the test of time and has, if anything, gotten more popular. Between her first book being published and the constant development of her “Christie Verse,” which is just how her books are steadily being adapted into films or TV shows.

Agatha Christie was born on September 15th, 1890, in Torquay, United Kingdom. She was the third child, her mother, Clarissa Miller, making her the youngest.

Tragically, her father, Frederick Miller, died when Christie was 11. However she still had a father-like person to take care of her and teach her things and that person was author Eden Philpotts. Because Philpotts lived so close to Christie, she would often talk to him and visit his house. As she talked to Philpotts so much and since he was an author, he made her love for literature reach heights he had never seen before.

But shockingly, he was not really the reason she started to write books, because that honor goes to her sister Madgee Miller. Believe it or not, the reason she is such a famed writer is that one day her sister Madge challenged Christie to a writing challenge. Due to this writing challenge, she wrote a book called The Mysterious Affair at Styles

In 1914, Christie got married to Archibald Christie on Christmas Eve. Archibald was a WWI lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps, which most likely caused her to be a WWI nurse. This later made her want to become a pharmacist. This profession choice gave her the knowledge she needed to write things about poison and almost always have correct information.

Christie finally published her first novel in 1920, which was, of course, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Over the next couple of years, she released around one book a year. Her five most popular books are And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Death on the Nile, and The A.B.C. Murders. All of the above information was according to Novels for Students, volumes 8, 30, and 33.

Sadly, she died on January 12th, 1976, in Winterbrooke, United Kingdom. She left behind the second-largest author legacy ever, only behind William Shakespeare.

However, even after her death, she still had an impact on the world because of her book adaptations. Recently, there have been a lot of movies that have come out that are book adaptations of Agatha Christie.

In total, there have been more than 30 feature films that have been released. More recently, there have been four big ones to come out, which are Death on the Nile (2022), Crooked House (2017), Murder on the Orient Express (2017), and A Haunting in Venice (2023).

And if you want to know if they are good or not, I’ll give a quick review of the more recent ones.

First, there is Death on the Nile, which I would rate an 8/10. The movie is near perfect, and the reveal of the murderer is pretty good. However, like any other movie, it has its faults, and this fault isn’t too bad because, at the end of the day, it’s just them messing up the greenscreen for a little, but it’s only for a couple of scenes. However, they spend almost the entirety of the end of the film on a boat, which was set so that only a couple of bad green screens. Other than that, it’s a pretty solid movie.

Second, there is Crooked House, which I would rate a 9/10. The movie starts off a little slowly and gets exponentially more interesting. Eventually, when you finish the movie, you will be in complete and absolute shock at what happens in the final act. I personally think that it is the biggest plot twist I have ever seen. But don’t worry, it’s not like most twist villains, where it’s not warned at all, because once you get the answer for who did it, it makes a lot of sense.

Third, there is Murder on the Orient Express, which I would rate a 7/10. The movie is not that bad and, once again, has a shocking ending but makes sense. However, some parts of the film will feel slow and a little weird. To give the movie credit, they did have to stay in the same place for almost the entirety of the film.

Last, there is A Haunting in Venice, which is the most recent film, and I would rate it a 9/10. It was a very interesting movie filled with suspense and a very little bit of horror. There was only one thing I disliked, which was the reveal, but it immediately made up for that with the ending of the movie.

However, this bunch of movies is not the end of the Agatha Christie adaptation. This is because Netflix is planning on making a “Christie Verse,” as of recently, according to The Telegraph.

According to The Telegraph, there is expected to be a new adaptation based on her 1929 story named The Seven Dials of Mystery. Netflix is planning to expand the “Christie Verse” even more.

Agatha Christie led one of the most insane author legacies in the world. I was shocked to learn that not many people knew who she was, so if you didn’t know, watch one of her movies or read one of her books.