Dame Agatha Christie DBE (1890-1976) was an English writer known for her detective novels surrounding Hercules Poirot and Jane Marple. Her novels have sold in excess of two billion copies and her play The Mousetrap was the longest running play in the West End, from 1952-2020. Her husband, Sir Max Mallowan, also photographed here was a prominent archaeologist and specialist in ancient Middle Eastern history. Dame Agatha accompanied her husband on many ‘digs’ which influenced her works Murder on the Orient Express, Murder in Mesopotamia and Death on the Nile.

Other photographs, taken during the same visit, probably to Dame Agatha's home Greenaway in Devon, by Snowdon are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery (see NPG P1859, NPG P1860