At the age of 60 this extraordinary auther of the most popular mystery novels ever published began writing of her life and career which ended with her death at 85 in January 1976. She was christened Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller. Her story starts with her childhood in "Ashfield," the Miller family residence in Torquay on the southern coast of England. Hers was a delightful upbringing in the late Victorian period when customs, manners, and the family group were so very important in that upper-class society. Here is a nostalgic description of a time much removed from her later life. 
 
Dame Agatha goes on to tell of her early writing attempts, her marriage to Archibald Christie, the birth of her only child, Rosalind, her work as a Red Cross volunteer during World War I, her modest success with the publication in 1921 of her first mystery, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, her unhappy separation and divorce from Christie. There follow vivid descriptions of her travels abroad while her novels were growing in popularity, of her meeting at an archaeological excavation site in the Middle East with Max Mallowan, who was to become one of Britain's foremost archaeologists, and their subsequent marriage in 1930.... and much more!