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
Marple railway station around the hall and Cheadle inspired many settings within her books. Due to living in Devon, Christie often used the railway to travel up to what was then Cheshire, by connecting from the Midland Main Line from London St Pancras onto the Hope Valley Line, and passing through Marple. It is theorised that at some point, a train was delayed there for long enough for the station sign to stick in her mind, to resurface in 1932 at the publication of the first novel featuring the detective Jane Marple. As part of Manchester's Transport Innovation Fund bid in 2008, which