Today's stop on the Agatha Christie Blog Tour is Dial M for MarpleThe article is the foreword to a new collection entitled The Complete Miss Marple, containing all 12 Miss Marple novels and 20 short stories by Agatha Christie, published by HarperCollins. Find out more about the collection, depicted below, here.
Dial M for Marple is Kate Mosse's tribute to Agatha Christie, talking about when she first met Miss Marple.
In the last week or so I've been running a poll about which actress best fits people's idea of Miss Marple.
I did something similar last year (and admitedly gave more choices) but Joan Hickson was still the clear favourite. People have obviously got more used to Julia McKenzie, and a few more voted for Margaret Rutherford.
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| Poll held July 2009 |
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| Poll September 2010 |
Kate Mosse says that Miss Marple has endured because
The character continues to speak to readers precisely because, in those quiet moments at the end of the day or when a difficult decision needs to be made, each of us wishes for our own Miss Marple to give clear and unequivocal advice. Someone older and wiser who understands that, changing times notwithstanding, the human heart does not change so very much. Love, jealousy, greed, anger, revenge — these are characteristics that endure, whether it be on a Caribbean island, among the tombs in Luxor, on the Devon coast or in an English village much like St Mary Mead. And, perhaps most important of all, because we recognise what Miss Marple’s companion, Cherry, says in Nemesis to be no more than the truth: “Good people are scarce.” In art, as in life.
I had my own attempt to list why Agatha Christie has survived so well, but Kate Mosse said it so well.
.. the simple truth that no one writes as good a detective story as Agatha Christie
Kerrie - Thanks for this. I agree that Mosse put it very, very well :-), although I like your post on the topic, too. Interesting that the responses to your polls should look so similar.
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