"Agatha Christie was born in 1890 and created the detective HerculePoirot in her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). She achieved wide popularity with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and produced a total of eighty novels and short-story collections over six decades. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and six romances under the name Mary Westmacott. In 1971 she was made a Dame for her contribution to literature. Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Devon. She served in a Devon hospital during the First World War. During the Second World War, she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London during the Blitz and acquired a good knowledge of poisons which featured in many of her novels. "