Miss Marple at an Italian finishing school with Americans Ruth Van Rydock and Caroline "Carrie" Louise Serrocold. While Miss Marple is described as 'an old lady' in many of the stories, her age is mentioned in "At Bertram's Hotel", where it is said she visited the hotel when she was fourteen and almost sixty years have passed since then. Excluding "Sleeping Murder", 41 years passed between the first and last-written novels, and many characters grow and age. An example would be the Vicar's nephew: in "The Murder at the Vicarage", the Reverend Clement's nephew Dennis is a teenager; in "The Mirror Crack'd
Miss Marple Marple was benign and chirpy. She had earlier appeared in a TV movie adaptation of the non-Marple Christie story "Murder Is Easy", playing an elderly lady somewhat similar to Miss Marple. From 1984 to 1992, the BBC adapted all of the original Miss Marple novels as a series titled "Miss Marple". Joan Hickson played the lead role. In the 1940s, she appeared on-stage in an Agatha Christie play, "Appointment with Death", which was seen by Christie who wrote in a note to her, "I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple". (Coincidentally, Hickson had played a housekeeper