Almost all of Agatha Christie's books are whodunits, focusing on the British middle and upper classes.

Some of these have explored and offered accounts of Christie's disappearance in 1926, including the 1979 film Agatha ( with Vanessa Redgrave, where she sneaks away to plan revenge against her husband ) and the Doctor Who episode " The Unicorn and the Wasp " ( with Fenella Woolgar, her disappearance being the result of her suffering a temporary breakdown due to a brief psychic link being formed between her and an alien ).

The detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is Agatha Christie's humorous self-caricature.

In The Agatha Christie Hour, she was portrayed by British actress Angela Easterling, while in Agatha Christie's Poirot, she was portrayed by Pauline Moran.

In Agatha Christie's Poirot, Japp was portrayed by Philip Jackson.

In Agatha Christie's Poirot, George is played by actor David Yelland.

David Suchet has starred as the eponymous detective in Agatha Christie's Poirot in the ITV series since 1989.

In 2004, NHK ( Japanese public TV network ) produced a 39 episode anime series titled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, as well as a manga series under the same title released in 2005.

Jane Marple, usually referred to as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in twelve of Agatha Christie's crime novels and in twenty short stories.

In 1983, Estonian stage and film actress Ita Ever starred in the Russian language film adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel A Pocket Full of Rye ( using the Russian edition's translated title, The Secret of the Blackbirds ) as the character of Miss Marple.

Beginning in 2004, ITV broadcast a series of adaptations of Agatha Christie's books under the title Agatha Christie's Marple, usually referred to as Marple.

From 2004 to 2005, Japanese TV network NHK produced a 39 episode anime series titled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, which features both Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.

The same joke-translation is mentioned in Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun by Patrick Redfern to Hercule Poirot – a prank which inadvertently gives Poirot the answer to the murder.

* 1952 – Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London later becoming the longest continuously-running play in history.

Agatha Christie's numerous mystery novels often referenced Scotland Yard, most notably in her Hercule Poirot series.

In Agatha Christie's Poirot series of books, Poirot often has a tisane and accounts this as being the reason why his " little grey cells " are superior to others.

* November 6 – Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None is published in book form in the United States.

Agatha Christie's book Ten Little Niggers was first published in London in 1939 and continued to appear under that title until the early 1980s, when it became And Then There Were None.

In addition, Ten Little Niggers ( 1939 ) was the original British title of Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None, which has also been known by the alternate title Ten Little Indians.

During this period, one of his high-profile film roles was as Agatha Christie's Belgian master detective Hercule Poirot in the 1974 film Murder On The Orient Express.

In Agatha Christie's, " Appointment with Death " ( 1938 ), the mysterious and enigmatic Petra is the setting for a murder mystery featuring Hercule Poirot.

Agatha Christie attributed the inspiration for the character of Miss Marple to a number of sources: Miss Marple was " the sort of old lady who would have been rather like some of my grandmother's Ealing cronies – old ladies whom I have met in so many villages where I have gone to stay as a girl ".

In the 1940s, Joan appeared on-stage in an Agatha Christie play, Appointment with Death, which was seen by Christie who wrote in a note to her, " I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple ".

The character of Jessica Fletcher is thought to be based on a combination of Miss Marple, Agatha Christie herself, and another Christie character, Ariadne Oliver, who often appears in the Hercule Poirot mysteries.

Many of the most popular books of the Golden Age were written by Agatha Christie, who produced a long series of books featuring her detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, amongst others, and usually including a complex puzzle for the reader to try to unravel.

She also appeared in ITV's Marple: Ordeal By Innocence, based on the Agatha Christie novel.

She is probably best known for her 1960s performances as Miss Marple in several films based loosely on Agatha Christie's novels.

In the early 1960s she became synonymous with Miss Jane Marple in a series of four films loosely based on the novels of Agatha Christie.

* Hatfield House was featured as " Chimneys " in the 2010 Agatha Christie's Marple adaptation of Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys.

From 1993 to 2001, June Whitfield played Miss Marple in 12 radio adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple books.

* In Nemesis by Agatha Christie, Miss Marple references Gretna Green in passing, noting: " There was no need for them to fly off to Gretna Green, they were of sufficiently mature age to marry.

The 1992 WGBH-TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mystery The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side centers around the shooting of a fictitious film about Elisabeth.

In 1980, Masterpiece gained a sister series, Mystery !, featuring a mix of contemporary and classic British detective and crime series, such as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Agatha Christie ’ s Miss Marple and Touching Evil.

By 1930, Agatha Christie found Poirot " insufferable ", and by 1960 she felt that he was a " detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep ".

By a curious coincidence she also played Agatha Christie herself in " The Unicorn and the Wasp ", an episode of Doctor Who.

* Agatha Christie – By the Pricking of My Thumbs

She has also made a number of guest appearances on television, including Agatha Christie's Marple on ITV ( playing Betty Johnson alongside Brian Conley in the episode By the Pricking of My Thumbs, February 2006 ), The Catherine Tate Show ( late 2006 ), Supermarket Sweep with Dale Winton ( February 2007 ) and the children's programme Hider in the House ( March 2007 ).

By The Pricking of My Thumbs is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1968 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year.

* By the Pricking of My Thumbs at the official Agatha Christie website

* " My Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth.

* " My Aunt Agatha who eats broken bottles and is strongly suspected of turning into a werewolf at the time of the full moon.

* In the 1992 Acorn Media production of Agatha Christie's One, Two, Buckle My Shoe with David Suchet and Philip Jackson, one of the supporting characters ( played by actor Christopher Eccleston ) secures a paid position as a rank-and-file member of the BUF.

References to the quintuplets appear in the Three Stooges ' shorts False Alarms ( 1936 ), and Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise ( 1939 ), the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey ( 1936 ), Preston Sturges ' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek ( 1944 ), and Agatha Christie's The Adventure of the Cheap Flat.

His acting performances include Wiċċ imb Wiċċ ( Face to Face ; 2002 ), Divorzju bi Prova ( Divorce by Trial ; 2003 ), Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap ( 2004 ), King Lear ( 2005 ), All My Sons ( 2006 ), etc.

Agatha Christie used this motif in Ten Little Indians and a number of other novels constructed around the basis of a nursery rhyme ( Hickory Dickory Dock, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, etc.

During the 1980s, he appeared in Play for Today ; Yes, Prime Minister ( in the episode " One of Us "); Inspector Morse ; My Family and Other Animals and Agatha Christie's Poirot.