In
The Murder at the Vicarage, Miss Jane Marple and the quiet village of St. Mary Mead make their first appearance. While many people see Miss Marple as a rival or replacement for Hercule Poirot (and while Agatha Christie herself had mentioned how much Poirot had irritated her), Christie does not admit to setting this old lady up as a rival for the little Belgian. The next time we see Miss Marple is twelve years later in the 1942 book
The Body in the Library.
At the beginning of the novel, the narrator Reverend Leonard Clement wonders how to tell the story, as it is difficult to demarcate where the origin of an event is. Clement admits that one evening, during a dinner gathering, he himself remarked in a light hearted manner that “anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the
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Citation: Lee, Amy. "The Murder at the Vicarage". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3409, accessed 25 November 2024.]
