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Jane Marple, usually known as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in twelve of Agatha Christie's crime novels. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster who acts as an amateur detective, and lives in the village of St. Mary Mead. She has been portrayed numerous times on screen, and is one of the most famous of Christie's creations. Her first published appearance was in issue 350 of The Royal Magazine for December 1927 with the first printing of the short story The Tuesday Night Club which later became the first chapter of The Thirteen Problems (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.

Contents 1 Character 2 Novels featuring Miss Marple 3 Miss Marple Short Story Collections 4 Books about Miss Marple 5 Quotation 6 Movies 6.1 Margaret Rutherford 6.2 Angela Lansbury 6.3 Helen Hayes 7 Television and radio adaptations 7.1 Television 7.2 Radio 8 External links

Miss Jane Marple is an elderly woman who lives in the little English village of St. Mary Mead. She looks like an ordinary old lady, dressed neatly in tweed and is frequently seen knitting or pulling weeds in her garden. Miss Marple sometimes comes across as confused or "fluffy", but when it comes to solving mysteries, she has a sharp logical mind. In the detective story tradition, she often embarrasses the local "professional" police by solving mysteries that have them stumped.

The name Miss Marple was derived from the name of the railway station in Marple, on the Manchester to Sheffield Hope Valley line, at which Agatha Christie was once delayed long enough to have actually noticed the sign.

The character of Jane Marple in the first Miss Marple book, The Murder at the Vicarage, is markedly different from how she would appear in later books. This early version of Miss Marple is a gleeful gossip and not an especially nice woman. In later books she becomes more modern and a kinder person.

Miss Marple never married and has no close living relatives. Vicarage introduced Miss Marple's nephew, the "well-known author" Raymond West. His wife Joan (initially called Joyce), a modern artist, was introduced in 1933 in The Thirteen Problems. Raymond tends to be overconfident in himself and underestimates Miss Marple's mental powers. In her later years, Miss Marple has a live-in companion named Cherry Baker.

Despite never having been married, The Murder at the Vicarage sheds light on a young Miss Marple. She reveals that she once loved a married man who wanted to leave his wife for her. He was called to World War I and Miss Marple made him promise not to have a divorce. He was killed in the war and Miss Marple never married.

Miss Marple is able to solve difficult crimes not only because of her shrewd intelligence, but because St. Mary Mead, over her lifetime, has given her seemingly infinite examples of the negative side of human nature. No crime can arise without reminding Miss Marple of some parallel incident in the history of her time. Miss Marple's acquaintances are sometimes bored by her frequent analogies to people and events from St. Mary Mead, but these analogies often lead Miss Marple to a deeper realization about the true nature of a crime.

Miss Marple also had a remarkably thorough education, including some art courses that involved study of human anatomy through the study of human cadavers. Although she looks like a sweet, frail old woman, Miss Marple is not afraid of dead bodies and is not easily intimidated. She also has a remarkable ability to latch onto a casual comment and connect it to the case at hand.

This education, history, and experience are hinted at in the Margaret Rutherford films, in which Miss Marple mentions her awards at marksmanship and fencing (although these hints are played for comedic value).

Christie wrote a concluding novel to her Marple series, Sleeping Murder, in 1940. She locked it away in a bank vault so it would be safe if she was killed in The Blitz. The novel was not published until shortly after Christie's death in 1976, some thirty-six years after it was originally written. Sleeping Murder created some discrepancies in the timeline of the series, as characters who were killed off by Christie in previously published novels reappeared alive.

• The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)
• The Body in the Library (1942)
• The Moving Finger (1943)
• A Murder is Announced (1950)
• They Do It with Mirrors, or Murder With Mirrors (1952)
• A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)
• 4.50 from Paddington, or What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! (1957)
• The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, or The Mirror Crack'd (1962)
• A Caribbean Mystery (1964)
• At Bertram's Hotel (1965)
• Nemesis (1971)
• Sleeping Murder (written around 1940, published 1976)

• The Thirteen Problems (short story collection featuring Miss Marple, also published as The Tuesday Club Murders) (1932)
• Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories (short stories collected posthumously, also published as Miss Marple's Final Cases, but only six of the eight stories actually feature Miss Marple) (written between 1939 and 1954, published 1979)

Miss Marple also appears in Greenshaw's Folly, a short story traditionally included as part of the Poirot collection The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960). Four stories in the Three Blind Mice collection (1950) feature Miss Marple: Strange Jest, Tape-Measure Murder, The Case of the Caretaker, and The Case of the Perfect Maid.

• The Life and Times of Miss Jane Marple -- a biography by Anne Hart

• "The young people think the old people are fools, but the old people know the young people are fools" – Miss Marple's motto, in several of the books and stories.

Although popular from her first appearance in 1930, Jane Marple had to wait thirty-two years for her first big-screen appearance. When she made it, the results were found disappointing to Christie purists and Christie herself. Murder, She Said (1962, directed by George Pollock) was the first of four British MGM productions starring Dame Margaret Rutherford, a magnificent comic actress but too boisterous and loud to fit the prim and birdlike character Christie created in her novels. This first film was based on the 1957 novel 4:50 from Paddington (U.S. title, What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!), and the changes made in the plot were typical of the series. In the film, Mrs. McGillicuddy does not see anything because there is no Mrs. McGillicuddy. Miss Marple herself sees an apparent murder committed on a train running alongside hers. Likewise, it is Miss Marple herself who poses as a maid to find out the facts of the case, not a young friend of hers who has made a business of it.

The other Rutherford films (all directed by George Pollock) were Murder at the Gallop (1963), based on the 1953 Hercule Poirot novel After the Funeral; Murder Most Foul (1964), based on the 1952 Poirot novel Mrs McGinty's Dead; and Murder Ahoy! (1964), not based on any Christie work. Rutherford also appeared briefly as Miss Marple in the spoof Hercule Poirot adventure The Alphabet Murders (1965).

The Rutherford films are frequently repeated on television in Germany, and in that country Miss Marple is generally identified with Rutherford's quirky portrayal.

In 1980, Angela Lansbury played Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd (EMI, directed by Guy Hamilton), based on Christie's 1962 novel. However, Lansbury is only on screen for a short time, the bulk of the film being taken up with the machinations of an all-star cast that included Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, and Kim Novak. Edward Fox appeared as Inspector Craddock, who did Miss Marple's legwork.

American stage and screen legend Helen Hayes portrayed Miss Marple in two American made-for-TV movies, both for CBS: A Caribbean Mystery (1983) and Murder with Mirrors (1984). Sue Grafton contributed to the screenplay of the former. Hayes's Marple was benign and chirpy.

American TV was the setting for the first dramatic portrayal of Miss Marple. Gracie Fields, a legendary British actress, played the geriatric sleuth in a 1956 episode of Goodyear TV Playhouse based on A Murder Is Announced, the 1950 Christie novel.

From 1984 to 1992, the BBC adapted all of the original Miss Marple novels as a series titled Miss Marple. Joan Hickson played the lead role. These programs, which are actually a set of 12 feature-length TV movies rather than a TV series in the usual sense, followed the plots of the original novels more closely than previous film and television adaptations had, and Joan Hickson has come to be regarded by many as the definitive Miss Marple (indeed Agatha Christie herself once remarked years earlier that she would like Joan Hickson to play Miss Marple).[1]

Angela Lansbury, after playing Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd, went on to star in the TV series Murder, She Wrote as Jessica Fletcher, a mystery novelist who also solves crimes. The character was based in part on Miss Marple and another Christie character, Ariadne Oliver.

In 2004, ITV first broadcast new adaptations of Agatha Christie's books under the title Agatha Christie's Marple, usually referred to as Marple, with Geraldine McEwan in the lead role. The series is infamous for its frequent plot and character changes (such as incorporating lesbian affairs, changing killer identities, and re-naming or removing a number of characters). Two series have so far aired, with a third airing in 2007.

From 2004 to 2005, Japanese TV network NHK produced a 39 episode anime series titled Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple, which features both Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.

BBC Radio 4 dramatised all of the novels from 1993-2001 with June Whitfield as Miss Marple.

• Will The Real Miss Marple Please Stand Up (All-About-Agatha-Christie.com)
• Yahoo Grouplist for Geraldine McEwan

v • d • e Works by Agatha Christie
Detectives:	Hercule Poirot • Miss Marple • Tommy and Tuppence • Ariadne Oliver • Arthur Hastings • Superintendent Battle • Chief Inspector Japp • Parker Pyne
Novels:	The Mysterious Affair at Styles • The Secret Adversary • The Murder on the Links • The Man in the Brown Suit • The Secret of Chimneys • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd • The Big Four • The Mystery of the Blue Train • The Seven Dials Mystery • The Murder at the Vicarage • The Sittaford Mystery • Peril at End House • Lord Edgware Dies • Murder on the Orient Express • Three Act Tragedy • Why Didn't They Ask Evans? • Death in the Clouds • The A.B.C. Murders • Murder in Mesopotamia • Cards on the Table • Dumb Witness • Death on the Nile • Appointment with Death • Hercule Poirot's Christmas • Murder is Easy • And Then There Were None • Sad Cypress • One, Two, Buckle My Shoe • Evil Under the Sun • N or M? • The Body in the Library • Five Little Pigs • The Moving Finger • Towards Zero • Death Comes as the End • Sparkling Cyanide • The Hollow • Taken at the Flood • Crooked House • A Murder is Announced • They Came to Baghdad • Mrs McGinty's Dead • They Do It with Mirrors • After the Funeral • A Pocket Full of Rye • Destination Unknown • Hickory Dickory Dock • Dead Man's Folly • 4.50 From Paddington • Ordeal by Innocence • Cat Among the Pigeons • The Pale Horse • The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side • The Clocks • A Caribbean Mystery • At Bertram's Hotel • Third Girl • Endless Night • By the Pricking of My Thumbs • Hallowe'en Party • Passenger to Frankfurt • Nemesis • Elephants Can Remember • Postern of Fate • Curtain • Sleeping Murder
As Mary Westmacott:	Giant's Bread • Unfinished Portrait • Absent in the Spring • The Rose and the Yew Tree • A Daughter's a Daughter • The Burden
Short story collections:	Poirot Investigates • Partners in Crime • The Mysterious Mr. Quin • The Thirteen Problems • The Hound of Death • The Listerdale Mystery • Parker Pyne Investigates • Murder in the Mews • The Regatta Mystery • The Labours of Hercules • The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories • Three Blind Mice and Other Stories • The Under Dog and Other Stories • The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding • Double Sin and Other Stories • The Golden Ball and Other Stories • Poirot's Early Cases • Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories • Problem at Pollensa Bay and Other Stories • The Harlequin Tea Set • While the Light Lasts and Other Stories
Plays:	Black Coffee • And Then There Were None • Appointment with Death • Murder on the Nile/Hidden Horizon • The Hollow • The Mousetrap • Witness for the Prosecution • Spider's Web • The Unexpected Guest • Verdict • Rule of Three • Fiddlers Three • Akhnaton • Chimneys
Radio (and Television) Plays:	Wasp's Nest • Three Blind Mice • Butter In a Lordly Dish
Other books:	The Road of Dreams • Star Over Bethlehem and other stories • Poems • An Autobiography