
Sample of authors
Christie, Agatha
English detective writer, born as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in an affluent middle-class home in Torquay in Devon County. Her father, who was an American from New York, died already in 1901, and Agatha was therefore brought up by her English mother while receiving her education in the home. When sixteen, she was sent to Paris to study singing, but it soon turned out that her voice was not...

Sample of authors
MacLean, Alistair
The Scottish author Alistair Stuart MacLean was born in Shettleston, Glasgow, in a Gaelic-speaking family as Alasdair MacGill-Eain (his Gaelic name was anglicised by the British authorities). His father was a Church of Scotland minister. While the author was still a baby, the family moved to a farm near Daviot in the Highlands. After the death of his father, his mother returned to Glasgow with...