Agatha Christie (born September 15, 1890, Torquay, Devon, England—died January 12, 1976, Wallingford, Oxfordshire) was an English detective novelist and playwright whose books have sold more than 100 million copies and have been translated into some 100 languages. One of the most popular authors in modern literature, she is widely regarded as the “Queen of Mysteries” or the “Queen of Crime Fiction.”

Educated at home by her mother, Christie began writing detective fiction while working as a nurse during World War I. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), introduced Hercule Poirot, her eccentric and egotistic Belgian detective; Poirot reappeared in about 25 novels and many short stories before returning to Styles, where, in Curtain (1975), he died. The elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple, her other principal detective figure, first appeared in Murder at the Vicarage (1930). Christie’s first major recognition came with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), which was followed by some 75 novels that usually made best-seller lists and were serialized in popular magazines in England and the United States.