British mystery writer Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. It is estimated that she sold over 2 billion works, putting Christie’s books just behind the Bible and William Shakespeare in terms of most sales. She has sold approximately a billion books in English, and another billion have been sold translated into around 45 different foreign languages. She is the most translated author, and has been translated into more languages than Shakespeare. Since her first novel was published in 1920, Christie’s 80 works have been adapted into film versions 27 times.
More about Agatha Christie:
- In 1975, The New York Times ran an obituary when Christie killed off one of her most prolific characters, Hercule Poirot, who had appeared in 33 novels.
- In her real life, Christie mysteriously disappeared for 11 days after finding out her husband had an affair—when questioned about it, she denied remembering her own whereabouts during that time.
- Christie is the author of the world’s longest running play, “The Mousetrap,” which she wrote for Queen Mary. It opened in 1952 in London and has been on stage ever since, as of 2014.