Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her sixty-six detective novels and fourteen short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play The Mousetrap, performed in the West End since 1952,[2] as well as six romances under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.[3][4]

Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. She served in a Devon hospital during the First World War, acquiring a good knowledge of poisons which would later feature in many of her novels, short stories, and plays. She was initially an unsuccessful writer with six consecutive rejections,[5] but this changed when The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 featuring Hercule Poirot.[6] Following her second marriage in 1930 to an archaeologist, she often used her first-hand knowledge of her husband's profession in her fiction. During the Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, updating her knowledge of toxins while contributing to the war effort.