Jane Marple

Miss Jane Marple doesn't look like your average detective. Quite frankly, she doesn't look like a detective at all. But fans of Agatha Christie’s novels know only too well that looks can be deceiving, for the mild-mannered spinster sleuth is as adept at solving murders that baffle Scotland Yard as she is at unravelling village secrets.

From the picturesque background of rural England in mysteries like The Body in the Library and The Murder at the Vicarage to the luxury of a London hotel in At Bertram's Hotel and on one occasion in the exotic setting of a Caribbean island with A Caribbean Mystery, Miss Marple is the match of every murderer she meets.

It wasn’t until 1930 that Agatha Christie created a detective who rivalled Hercule Poirot in the public’s affections. Agatha Christie said that the character of Miss Marple was inspired by Dr Sheppard’s shrewd and shrewish sister in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and certain friends of her grandmother – and indeed her own grandmother – of whom Agatha Christie once said “[she] expected the worst of everyone and everything and was with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right.”

In appearance, Miss Marple is a tall, thin woman with a pink, wrinkled face, pale blue eyes and snowy white hair which she wears piled upon her head in an old-fashioned manner. Her innocuous appearance, meandering conversation and ever-present knitting needles often mislead people into underestimating her as simply a "dithering old maid." Those who really know her recognize that she is a sharp observer of human nature with "an uncanny knack of being always right."

Despite a lifetime spent in peaceful St. Mary Mead, Miss Marple 's attitude is surprisingly worldly and she seems familiar with all the seven deadly sins. As she often points out, village life provides countless opportunities to observe every evil trait in human nature. Drawing parallels between the everyday mysteries that puzzle her neighbours, and cases of national importance, Miss Marple's logical mind pieces together the clues with unnerving accuracy.

When she created Miss Marple, Agatha said that she did not expect that she would continue writing about her for the rest of her life but from the moment that this “typical old maid of fiction” made her first appearance, Christie’s readers were hooked. Miss Marple appeared in a total of twelve novels and 20 short stories and celebrated her 75th anniversary in 2005.

source : uk.agathachristie.com