Christie at some point, perhaps in an interview, said Marple was 'born at the age of 65 to seventy.' Say 65 in 1928, she would have been born in 1863 and so 51 at the start of the Great War. And so the notion of her having a romantic attachment to a soldier who died in a war that ended ten years previously seems a bit out of joint. In Marple's first appearance, in a short story of 1928, she's described as wearing a black brocade dress, black lace mittens, and a black lace cap atop a mound of snow-white hair. Christie herself strew a little confusion here and there. That was, in fact, in Murder in the Vicarage. Sleeping Murder (written around 1940, published 1976).The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, or The Mirror Crack'd (1962).They Do It with Mirrors, or Murder with Mirrors (1952).So which one is closest to your 'mental picture' from your reading? Now that the latest has hit our TV screens you have probably been thinking about which one is closest to your idea of Miss Marple. Over to the right is the first known image of Miss Marple, an illustration by Gilbert Wilkinson of Miss Marple from the December 1927 issue of The Royal Magazine and the first-known image of the character (See The Thirteen Problems)īelow are the Miss Marples of screen and television. I wrote at the time that I wasn't at all sure whether Julia was old or fluffy enough for the role, but that I greatly admired her ability to take on different roles. Last year when Geraldine McEwan announced her retirement from being Miss Marple, it was announced that the mantle would pass to Julia McKenzie.

They do it with mirrors joan hickson