The Magnificent Miss Marple Trivia Quiz

Answer:

"The Murder at the Vicarage" was the first story to feature Miss Jane Marple. In her autobiography, Agatha Christie wrote that she could not remember where, when, how or why she wrote it, or why she created a new sleuth in the character of Miss Marple. She had no intention of Miss Marple becoming a recurring character but she became a favourite and featured in 12 full-length novels and 20 short stories.

Christie went on to say that she thought it was possible that Miss Marple "arose from the pleasure I had taken in portraying Dr Sheppard's sister (Caroline) in 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'. She had been my favourite character in the book-an acidulated spinster, full of curiosity, knowing everything, hearing everything: the complete detective service in the home".

It has been claimed on a number of websites that Christie based Miss Marple on her own grandmother. This is not true. In her autobiography, she said that Miss Marple was "the sort of old lady who would have been rather like some of my grandmother's Ealing cronies - old ladies whom I have met in so many villages where I have gone to stay as a girl. Miss Marple was not in any way a picture of my grandmother; she was far more fussy and spinsterish than my grandmother ever was. But one thing she did have in common with her - though a cheerful person, she always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and was, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right."

She went on to say, "Anyway, I endowed my Miss Marple with something of Grannie's powers of prophecy. There was no unkindness in Miss Marple, she just did not trust people. Though she expected the worst, she often accepted people kindly in spite of what they were".

When we first meet Miss Marple in "The Murder at the Vicarage", she is described as an elderly spinster - "a white-haired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner". Christie stated her age as being between 65 and 70. In "Sleeping Murder", she is described as "tall and thin, with pink cheeks and blue eyes".

Miss Marple lives in the village of St Mary Mead and her hobbies are knitting, gardening and bird-watching - the latter two hobbies give her a reasonable excuse while monitoring the activities and behaviours of her neighbours. She has acute powers of observation and deduction and when it comes to village gossip, she misses nothing.

Miss Marple believes that people are the same the world over. She solves crimes by noticing similarities between the behaviours of the people who are connected to the case at hand and those of the people she knows in her village - a comparison referred to as village parallels. In the short story "The Thumb Mark of St Peter", she remarked, "Human nature is much the same everywhere, and, of course, one has opportunities of observing it at closer quarters in a village". She also maintained that "you simply cannot afford to believe everything people tell you" and "the worst is so often true".

In this quiz, of the 15 titles that are Miss Marple stories, 12 are full-length novels and three are short stories or collections. The short stories are "Greenshaw's Folly", "The Tape Measure Murder" and the anthology is "The Thirteen Problems" (also published under the title "The Tuesday Club Murders") which comprises 13 short stories.

The incorrect answer options are the five books that feature Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. There are four novels and one collection of short stories. "Partners in Crime" consists of 17 short stories cobbled together to create a continuous narrative. Unlike her other sleuths, Christie aged the couple in real time. When they first appeared in "The Secret Adversary" (1922), they are in their early twenties, likely around 22 years of age ("their united ages would certainly not have totalled forty-five"). By the time "Postern of Fate" (1973) was written, they are said to be retired, suffering from rheumatism, and with a granddaughter named Janet. Reference is made to their first case taking place "years and years and years ago". Although their precise age is not stated, it is assumed they must be around 73 years of age. "Postern of Fate" was the last novel Christie wrote before she died in January 1976, although it was not the last to be published.