Agatha Christie’s Styles

About the Author

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 100 foreign countries. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott. Born in 1926 in Providence, Rhode Island, into a family of distinguished Scottish architects and town planners, Tom Adams had artistry in his blood. After a year at Cambridge University and service in the Royal Navy from 1944–1946, Tom trained at Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths College, London, graduating in Fine Art in 1950. A prolific cover artist, he is best known for the Agatha Christie covers he created between 1962 and 1979, though he worked also on advertising, portraits, album covers, poster prints and films such as 2001 and Flash Gordon. Tom has won various awards, notably from the American Society of Illustrators and the Design and Art Directors Association, UK. He now lives in Cornwall with his wife, Georgie, who writes children's books.