222 QI Answers to Your Quite Ingenious Questions by The QI Elves

Author:The QI Elves
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Who is the most successful novelist of all time?

Agatha Christie. She has sold a billion copies of her books in English and another billion in international editions, and is outsold by only Shakespeare (who was, of course, a playwright) and the Bible.

Born in Torquay in 1890, Christie began writing after her sister Madge bet her that she couldn’t write a detective story. She went on to write 66 novels, 14 short stories and several works for theatre, including the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap. During the First World War, she worked in a hospital pharmacy and developed such knowledge of poisons that one of her early books was mentioned in the Pharmaceutical Journal.

Christie once caused consternation at MI5 after she named a character ‘Major Bletchley’ in her novel N or M?, as they worried this meant she knew about the top-secret codebreaking efforts going on at Bletchley Park. She was friends with Bletchley codebreaker Dilly Knox, who asked her about the name. ‘Bletchley?’ replied Christie. ‘My dear, I was stuck there on my way by train from Oxford to London and took revenge by giving the name to one of my least lovable characters.’

MI5 heaved a huge sigh of relief.

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