Agatha Christie Inspires Video Game

Posted on October 26, 2005

The Adventure Company today released 75 Facts About the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie to celebrate the upcoming release of the first-ever video game based on the works of Dame Agatha. The fact list includes the information that she also wrote six romance novels under a secret pen name (Mary Westmacott). She is also the most translated author in the world.

She wrote about two books a year during her writing life. Here are a few more of the fascinating facts:

1. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Agatha Christie is the best-selling fiction author of all time with an estimated two billion copies of her books in print. By comparison, around 270 million copies of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books have been sold.
3. She wrote 80 novels and short story collections and 19 plays. She also wrote two books of poetry, a children's book, and two autobiographical works.
5. On average 97 per cent of adults in the UK know of Agatha Christie and one third have read at least one Christie novel; more than half have seen a Christie film.
7. For many years she set and corrected an essay competition for pupils of a local school.
9. She is also the nation's favorite spoken book author. In 2002, 117,696 Christie audiobooks were sold, compared to 97,755 for JK Rowling, 78,770 for Roald Dahl and 75,841 for JRR Tolkein.
10. In 2000 Agatha Christie was voted Best Writer of the 20th Century and her Poirot books were named Best Series of the Century at the 31st Boucheron World Mystery Convention.
11. Her most famous play, The Mousetrap, is the longest continuously running play of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

You can find more of the long list of facts here. We love Dame Agatha. We recall reading in her autobiography how much work she thought writing was. She said that sometimes she could only keep going by reminding herself of how overdrawn she was at the bank. Practical, self-effacing and enormously talented. That was Agatha Christie.

The video game, Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None, will arrive in November. It will be available for the PC in time for the holidays.