Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born September 5, 1890, in Torquay, England. In 1914, she married Colonel Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. They had a daughter, Rosalind, and divorced in 1928. By that time, Christie had begun writing mystery stories, initially in response to a dare from her sister. She published her first novel in 1920, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which featured the debut of one of her most famous characters, the Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. Christie would go on to become the world's best-selling writer of mystery novels.