Internationally acclaimed as one of the foremost mystery writers of our time, Agatha Christie was also a popular playwright of distinction and the author of such theatrical successes as Ten Little Indians (first produced in 1943 as Ten Little Niggers), Witness for the Prosecution (1953), and London's longest running play, The Mousetrap (1952). Christie, the undisputed Queen of Crime--or, as she preferred, the Duchess of Death--wrote, in all, sixty-six novels of mystery and detection, sixteen collections of detective stories, six novels of romance and suspense (under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott), fifteen stage plays, two radio plays, a book of travel reminiscences, two volumes of verse, a collection of children's stories, and An Autobiography (published posthumously in November 1977) which offers an intimate self-portrait of the author as woman, wife, and mother.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller Christie was born in Torquay, Devonshire, in 1890, the youngest of three children of Frederick Alvah and Clarissa...