Agatha Christie a long-running character in Christie's works, appearing in 33 novels and 54 short stories. Miss Jane Marple, introduced in the short-story collection "The Thirteen Problems" in 1927, was based on Christie's grandmother and her "Ealing cronies". Both Jane and Gran "always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and were, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right." Marple appeared in 12 novels and 20 stories. During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, "Curtain" and "Sleeping Murder", intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Both books were sealed in a bank
Miss Marple (TV series) Helen Hayes for television broadcast. Thus these three titles were the last to be dramatised under the BBC's agreement. The adaptations are mainly true to the original novels. Joan Hickson, who played Miss Marple, was an octogenarian herself during most of the series' production. Decades before, she had appeared in a minor role in "Murder, She Said", in which Margaret Rutherford played Miss Marple. Hickson had also appeared in a stage adaptation of the novel "Appointment with Death" in 1946, after which Christie sent Hickson a note that read, "I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple."