St. Mary Mead St. Mary Mead St. Mary Mead was the fictional village created by popular crime fiction author Dame Agatha Christie. The quaint, sleepy village was home to the renowned detective spinster Miss Marple. However, Christie first described a village of that name prior to Marple's introduction, in the 1928 Hercule Poirot novel "The Mystery of the Blue Train". In that novel, St. Mary Mead is home to the book's protagonist Katherine Grey. The village was first mentioned in a Miss Marple book in 1930, when it was the setting for the first Marple novel, "The Murder at the Vicarage". Miss Marple's
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."