an of Mystery
AGATHA CHRISTIE, WOMAN OF MYSTERY
Many people enjoy reading murder mysteries, because they are puzzles. Can we guess the murderer’s name before the detective tells us at the end of the book? Was the broken chair an accident, or is it an important clue? How did the murderer get into the house? Did he (or she) have a key? Why were there three coffee cups on the table?
Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries are famous all over the world. She wrote more than seventy books and they have sold millions of copies. There have been many television plays and films of her stories. Her detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, are famous too – a short round Belgian with a black moustache, and a dear little old lady, who sees, hears, and remembers everything.
This is a story about Agatha Christie’s life. What kind of person was she? How much do we know about her? She was rich, famous, and twice married. And there was a mystery in her life, too …
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis edition © Oxford University Press 2008The moral rights of the author have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19972 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 479050 5A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of Agatha Christie, Woman of Mystery is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 478973 8ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The publishers would like to thank the following for their kind permission to reproduce photographs: Alamy Images pp17 (Cuckoo Rock, Dartmoor/David Baker), 36 (Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple/Photos 12), 40 (Agatha Christie meets Queen Elizabeth II/Keystone Pictures USA); Bridgeman Art Library Ltd p10 (Agatha Christie, 10th March 1923 / The Illustrated London News Picture Library, London, UK); Corbis p29 (Agatha Christie/Bettmann); Getty Images pp4 (Torquay, 1922/Topical Press Agency), 25 (Detectives with Christie's abandoned car/H.F.Davies/Topical Press Agency), 26 (Newspaper article 1926/Hulton Archive), 26 (Agatha Christie in disguise/Hulton Archive), 35 (Agatha Christie with her husband/Popperfoto); Mary Evans Picture Library p13 (Colonel Archie Christie, c.1926/Illustrated London News Ltd); Rex Features p21 (David Suchet as Hercule Poirot); Ronald Grant Archive pp32 (Poster for Murder on the Orient Express/EMI), 38 (The Mousetrap theatre programme) Illustrated by: Nick HardcastleWord count (main text): 5955 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookwormse-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478702 4e-Book first published 2012
