A biography of the Scotsman who was sportsman, sailor, soldier, physician and historian as well as creator of the modern detective story and the best known detective.

"Agatha Christie was not only the most successful author of detective stories the world has ever known, she was also a mystery in herself, giving only the rarest interviews--declining absolutely to become any sort of public figure. Distinguished crime novelist H. R. F. Keating brings together a dozen noted writers to throw light on the ever-intriguing Dame Agatha. Some essays analyze Christie's art itself; some explain the reasons for her success....

John Keats, English poet, was a key advocate of the English Romantic movement during the early nineteenth century. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize Keats' poetry, including a series of odes, his masterpieces, which remain among the most popular poems in English literature. During his very short life, his work received constant critical attacks from periodicals of the day, but his posthumous influence on poets such as Alfred...

"From New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan comes an exquisite novel of Joy Davidman, the woman C. S. Lewis called 'my whole world.' When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis--known as Jack--she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn't holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet...

"It has been one hundred years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. A brilliant and award winning biographer, Laura Thompson now turns her sharp eye to Agatha Christie. Arguably the greatest crime writer in the world, Christie's books still sell over four million copies each year-- more than thirty years after her death-- and it shows no signs of slowing. But who was the woman behind these mystifying,...