Undisputed Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, born on this day: September 15, 1890.

Many modern readers know Agatha Christie as the quintessential Queen of Crime. During her writing career, Christie wrote 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections which introduced us to her famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

On September 15, 1890, Christie was born in Devon, England to an upper-middle class family. She was the youngest of three children. As a child, Christie was homeschooled despite the fact that her older sister was enrolled in boarding school. The young Christie had shown promise from an early age, teaching herself to read by the age of 4.

While The Great War and Second World War ravaged England and much of Europe, Christie served the war effort in hospital dispensaries, acquiring a thorough of knowledge of poisons which she’d later use in her short stories, plays and novels.

Christie wrote her first detective story in 1916 titled The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in which she introduces the world to Detective Hercule Poirot, a former Belgian police officer with "magnificent moustaches", who had taken refuge in Britain after Germany invaded Belgium. Christie said her inspiration for the character came from the Belgian refugees and the Belgian soldiers she helped to treat as a volunteer nurse during the First World War.

Christie is also known for having written the world’s longest running play, The Mousetrap, which had been performed for audiences since 1952 in London’s West-End theatres. The play opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London Nov 25, 1952 and by September 2018 had been performed more than 27, 500 times. Unfortunately the play closed in March 2020 due to the spread of the coronavirus and institution of public health measures.

In addition to that achievement, Christie’s novel, And Then There Were None, ascended to become one of the top-selling books of all time, selling approximately 100 million copies since initial publication. In total, her books have sold more than two billion copies.

In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Grand Master Award from Mystery Writers of America. And in 1971 her contributions to literature were recognized when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. Christie died in 1976 at the age of 85 having made an indelible mark on the world of fiction and defining the crime novel as we know it today.