Miss Marple Morton adapted the novel for the stage, he replaced the character of Caroline with a young girl. This change saddened Christie and she determined to give old maids a voice: Miss Marple was born. Christie may have taken the name from Marple railway station, through which she passed, or from Marple Hall, near her sister Madge's home at Abney Hall. The character of Jane Marple in the first Miss Marple book, "The Murder at the Vicarage", is markedly different from how she appears in later books. This early version of Miss Marple is a gleeful gossip and not an especially
Agatha Christie TV reporters, some having travelled from as far away as South America. Thirty wreaths adorned Dame Agatha's grave, including one from the cast of her long-running play "The Mousetrap" and one sent 'on behalf of the multitude of grateful readers' by the Ulverscroft Large Print Book Publishers. She was survived by her only child, Rosalind Hicks (1919–2004), and only grandson, Mathew Prichard. Her husband, Max, died in 1978, aged 74, after having remarried in 1977. He was interred next to Agatha Christie. Christie had set up a private company, Agatha Christie Limited, to hold the rights to her works, and