Agatha Christie. Use of English B1

Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie is possibly the world's …       (famous) detective story writer.

She … 79 novels and several plays.

Her sales … those of William Shakespeare.

However, behind her 4,680,000 words was a …            (pain) shy woman whose life was often lonely and unhappy.

She …           (bear) in 1890 in Devon, the third child of Clarissa and Frederick Miller, and …       (grow) into a beautiful and sensitive girl with waist-length golden hair.

She didn't go to school but …              (educate)at home by her mother.

Her father died when she was 11 and both she and her mother were … .

During World War I, while she was working in a hospital dispensary, she learned about chemicals and poisons, which … very useful to her in her later career.

Her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, …             (write) in 1920.

In it she introduced Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective who … in many subsequent novels.

Her other main detective was an elderly … called Miss Marple.

In 1914, at the beginning of the war, she had married Archibald Christie but the marriage was …         (happy).

It …         (not last) and they divorced in 1926.

That year there was a double tragedy in her life because her much-loved mother …       (die).

Agatha suffered a nervous …, and one night she abandoned her car and mysteriously disappeared.

She went …          (miss) for 11 days and was eventually found in a hotel in Harrogate, in the North of England.

It is interesting to note that it was while she was suffering so much that she wrote one of her … , The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Agatha desperately wanted … and developed very bitter feelings towards the media because the newspapers had given her a hard time over her breakdown and disappearance.

She was determined never to let them enter her private life again and she …         (bury) herself in her work.

On 25 November 1952 her … The Mousetrap opened in London.

Today, over 40 years later, it is still … .

It is the …          (long)running show in the whole world.

enjoyed a very happy second marriage to Max Mallowan, an archaeologist. Her detective skills were a help to him in his … in Syria and Iraq.

By successfully staying out of the … she ultimately found happiness with her beloved husband. She died peacefully in 1976.