Auguste Dupin, a brilliant detective (although not a professional one) who first appeared in Poe’s 1841 story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and who set a template for all future detective protagonists. She died of natural causes in 1976.Īlthough the mystery genre has ancient roots, Edgar Allen Poe is often credited with popularizing the modern English-language detective story.

Christie wrote over 60 detective novels, as well as several short stories and the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap. Her knowledge of Egypt from these various trips informed her writing of Death on the Nile. In 1930, Christie married her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, and in the following years, she accompanied him on several digs around the Middle East, including in Egypt. It featured the eccentric Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, perhaps her best-known recurring character (although Christie is also famous for her spinster sleuth, Miss Marple). Christie was interested in reading and writing from a young age, and she published her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles in the early 1920s. In 1907, after finishing her education, Christie and her mother spent the winter in Egypt, which was then a popular tourist destination for Britons who could afford it. She was born to an upper-middle-class family in Devon, England, where she had a relatively happy childhood until her father died when she was eleven. Agatha Christie was arguably the most popular fiction writer of all time, having sold over two billion copies of her novels.

Agatha christie nile