Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie was born in 1890 in a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. She was mainly educated at home by her mother, who encouraged her to write from a young age. She married Archibald Christie, a Royal Flying Corps pilot, in 1914 and had one daughter, Rosalind, in 1919. She began writing detective stories as a hobby and published her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1920, introducing her famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. She went on to create other popular sleuths, such as Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, and Parker Pyne. She also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1926, she caused a sensation when she disappeared for eleven days after a quarrel with her husband, who was having an affair. She was eventually found at a hotel in Harrogate, claiming to have suffered from amnesia. She divorced her husband in 1928 and married Max Mallowan, a renowned archaeologist, in 1930. She accompanied him on his expeditions to the Middle East and used her experiences as inspiration for some of her novels. She was widely regarded as the "Queen of Crime" and the "best-selling novelist of all time" by Guinness World Records. Her books are known for their ingenious plots, clever clues, red herrings, and surprising twists. Some of her most famous works include Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, And Then There Were None, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and The ABC Murders. She also wrote several plays, such as The Mousetrap, which has been running continuously in London since 1952. She received many honors and awards for her contribution to literature, such as the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award and the Order of Dame Commander of the British Empire. She died peacefully at her home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, in 1976 at the age of 85134