News imageWitness History, Witness History, Agatha Christie: best-selling novelist of all time

Witness History

Witness History

Agatha Christie: best-selling novelist of all time

23 January 2026

11 minutes

Available for over a year

On 12 January 1976, author Agatha Christie died peacefully, aged 85.

She created the detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

By the time of her death, Christie had written more than 80 books. Most of her works were detective novels but she also wrote romances, short stories, poetry and plays.

In 2015, Louise Hidalgo spoke to her grandson, Mathew Prichard.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: English detective novelist, Agatha Christie. Credit: Bettman/Getty Images)