By what name was Great Britain’s first Lady Mallowan more widely known?

Agatha Miller was born in 1890 to well-off upper-middle class parents in the resort town of Torquay, England. She developed an uncommon imagination, spent a lot of time with imaginary friends, and taught herself to read despite her mother’s disapproval.

According to Guinness, Christie is the best-selling novelist on record, with 2 billion copies sold, in over 100 languages. Her estate says that her books are the third most-widely published, behind the works of William Shakespeare and the Bible.

She began writing at age 11, when the flu confined her to bed. Her writings were based on people she met and the politics, philosophies, and phenomena she experienced in her parents’ high social circle.

She met Archibald Christie in 1913. He was assigned to fight in France, so they married on Dec. 24, 1914. They divorced in 1928. Agatha left England to travel the Orient express to Istanbul and Baghdad, where she met Max Mallowan. They were married from 1930 until her death in 1976.

Both she and Mallowan were appointed to the Order of the British Empire (she in 1956, he in 1960). Both were later elevated in the ranks, she to Dame Commander of the British Empire. She became Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE

Dame Angela Lansbury, born in 1925 in London, is a stage, screen, and television actress who portrayed Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer and sleuth in “Murder, She Wrote.” Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen were earlier British authors.