Agatha Christie Research Paper

Golden Age Mystery

Agatha Christie, known as one of the greatest authors of all time, not only as the best mystery author, but the most talented writer of all time. Her works sold very rapidly, almost out selling the bible. “The Guinness Book of World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies.” (wikipedia). Agatha Christie’s absurd amount of books sold proves her book writing skills to be very successful. Not only did she make mystery into what it is today, she used her own styles of complexed writing no one had saw before. Mystery has came a long way from when it first started in the 1800’s. “Edgar Allan Poe introduced mystery fiction’s first fictional detective, Auguste C. Dupin, in his 1841 story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”” (History of the Mystery). Many authors of the time period “Golden Age Britain mystery” used different types of writing to create best selling novels. Before the “hard boiled” mystery novels started to sell in the United States, Agatha Christie

Authors began to brainstorm different roles of mystery till they came up with the new ideal mystery style called “hard boiled”. The idea of this style was that the main character was a detective. Often each of the murders happen in a gorey way that is very descriptive. In contrast with the novels Agatha Christie wrote, most of the books that America published books that solely surrounded detective work. The most widely considered famous mystery author during the time period in America was Dashiell Hammett. Dashiell Hammett had so much success in writing fiction mystery “his life's work has led many readers to call him the world's finest detective-fiction writer.” (Biography). His works were very influential with shaping the “hard boiled” genre. Dashiell’s first major selling book was made in 1930, called “The Maltese