Sunday, January 12, 2020

January 12th in stamps Agatha Christie, Bhagwan Das, Charles Perrault

Here are some events that happened on January 12th. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day

1628 Born: Charles Perrault, French author and academic (d. 1703)

Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The best known of his tales include Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots), La Belle au bois Dormant (The Sleeping Beauty) and Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard). Some of Perrault's versions of old stories influenced the German versions published by the Brothers Grimm more than 100 years later. The stories continue to be printed and have been adapted to opera, ballet (such as Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty), theater, and film. Perrault was an influential figure in the 17th-century French literary scene, and was the leader of the Modern faction during the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.

Stamps from Monaco and East Germany depicting Perrault's tales

Monaco  1978 350  Anniversary of Charles Perrault-Illustrations

Monaco  1978 350  Anniversary of Charles Perrault-Red Riding Hood.

DDR Anniversary of Charles Perrault-Illustrations


1869 Born: Bhagwan Das, Indian philosopher, academic, and politician (d. 1958)

Bhagwan Das (12 January 1869 – 18 September 1958) was an Indian Theosophist and public figure. For a time he served in the Central Legislative Assembly of British India. He became allied with the Hindustani Culture Society and was active in opposing rioting as a form of protest. As an advocate for national freedom from the British rule, he was often in danger of reprisals from the Colonial government. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955.

Indian stamp depicting Bhagwan Das

Dr. Bhagwan Das Head of Theosophical society FDC


1976 Died: Agatha Christie, English crime novelist, short story writer, and playwright (b. 1890)

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and, under the pen name Mary Westmacott, six romances. In 1971 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.

Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. Before marrying and starting a family in London, she had served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, tending to troops coming back from the trenches. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections, but this changed when The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot, was published in 1920. During the Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, acquiring a good knowledge of poisons which feature in many of her novels.

Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the world record for longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End on 25 November 1952, and as of April 2019 is still running after more than 27,000 performances.

In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. Later the same year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. In 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers' Association. On 15 September 2015, coinciding with her 125th birthday, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, and more than thirty feature films have been based on her work.

Some stamps and booklets from Great Britain and Ukraine



Booklet pane AGATHA CHRISTIE

Booklet pane AGATHA CHRISTIE

Booklet pane AGATHA CHRISTIE

Great Britain 2016-Agatha Christie stamp set

Ukraine 2017, Literature, Writer Agatha Christie


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