AGATHA CHRISTIE’S
MARPLE
THE LIFE AND TIMES
OF MISS JANE MARPLE

Anne Hart

For a very dear aunt,

Anita Elliott Baird,

whom Miss Marple would have

enjoyed knowing

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Preface

1 St Mary Mead

2 Miss Marple’s Earlier Life

3 Miss Marple’s Career Begins

4 The 1930s

5 Postwar Events

6 The Four Last Cases

7 The Essential Miss Marple

8 A Visit to Miss Marple

9 Miss Marple at Home

10 Miss Marple at Large

11 ‘My Nephew, the Author’ and Other Relatives and Friends

12 Little Maids All In a Row

13 Miss Marple as Sleuth

A Miss Marple Bibliography

Miss Marple Short Stories

Miss Marple Films, TV and Radio

References

Acknowledgments

Keep Reading

About the Author

Other Works

Copyright

About the Publisher

PREFACE

It has been a great pleasure to write this biography of Agatha Christie’s beloved and resilient Miss Marple, the best known of a notable group of women who have played leading roles in detective fiction. Of course, not a word of this book would have been written had not a benevolent genius created Miss Marple in the first place, and I am immensely grateful to Rosalind Hicks, Agatha Christie’s daughter, for giving her kind approval for my use of her mother’s writing in this way.

Unlike other biographers, I cannot claim to have unearthed new material. Everything we know of Miss Marple is contained in the twelve books and twenty short stories devoted to her remarkable sleuthing. To search through these books and stories, not for murderers but for clues to Miss Marple herself, is the aim of this biography. I hope its readers will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Together we are indebted to the incomparable Agatha Christie.

I am grateful to a number of people who have encouraged me along the way. I would particularly like to thank Susan Hart, Nancy Grenville, David Grenville, and Percy Janes for their helpful advice on the manuscript, and June Mescia, my editor, for her suggestions and good judgment.

ANNE HART