The Mousetrap

 Agatha Christie

For her 80th birthday in 1947, Queen Mary requested a radio play be written for her by Agatha Christie. The play – broadcast on May 30, 1947 – was called Three Blind Mice but when Christie adapted it to a stage play in 1951 it was renamed The Mousetrap. It debuted on November 25, 1952.

Agatha Christie donated the rights to the play to her grandson, Matthew Prichard, as a present for his 7th birthday. The movie rights were sold in 1956 – to British producer John Woolf – but on condition that a film version won’t be released within 6 months after the staging.

Woolf passed away in 1999 and The Mousetrap is, after more than 50 years after its debut, still staged at the St Martin’s theater in London. Having passed the 24,000th performance, it is the longest-running show of any type in history. And, obviously, there won’t be a movie version until at least 6 months after the last stage performance in London.

 Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (which introduced Hercule Poirot to the world), was rejected 6 times before it was published in 1920. She killed off her famous private investigator Poirot character a year before she died in 1976… but not before he became almost as well known as she was. Poirot appeared in 33 novels, 51 short stories and numerous radio plays, movies and TV series.

Under which name did Agatha Christie write romance novels? Mary Westmacott.

World’s first novel was written by a woman