Agatha Christie

Born on September 15, 1890 in Torquay, England, Agatha Mary Christie became the world's leading writer of the murder mystery. She was the daughter of Frederick Alvah Miller and Clarissa Miller. Her father died when she was a young child, and Agatha was home-schooled until, at the age of sixteen, she left England to study music in Paris. Although an accomplished pianist, she suffered from terrible stage-fright which kept her from going into a career in music.

After a trip to Cairo with her mother, Agatha turned to writing and completed her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). In it she introduced one of the world best-known detectives, Hercule Poirot. Having been influenced by the tales of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Poirot became a manifestation of Holmes while his companion, Captain Hastings, was patterned after Holmes's Dr. Watson.

In 1914, Agatha Miller married Col. Archibald Christie and the couple had one child, a daughter, Rosalind. The marriage broke up in 1926, and Agatha Christie later married Max Mallowan in 1930. Her second husband was an archeologist, so Agatha accompanied him on many of his expeditions through Iraq and Syria. These excursions through the Middle East later formed the backdrop of some of her exotic settings.

Within her lifetime, Agatha Christie published a total of 93 books (66 of them were mysteries, but she also wrote romance novels and children's books) as well as 17 plays. Her most beloved characters are two of the best known detectives in the fictional world: Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

For her extraordinary success, Agatha Christie was honored with the title of Dame of the British Empire in 1971. She died peacefully of natural causes on January 12, 1976.

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