The Murder at the Vicarage — The 1930 Text — The First Miss Marple Novel (eBook)

Before Miss Marple was a legend, she was the village's sharpest inconvenience — and this is where she starts.

The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) is the first Miss Marple novel: Colonel Protheroe, the most disliked man in St Mary Mead, is found shot dead in the Vicar's study, and the case is cracked not by the police but by an elderly spinster the whole village underestimates. This Companion Classics edition prints the complete 1930 text, taken from Project Gutenberg and collated against the American and British first-edition witnesses — ten readings restored where the modern reprint behind the file disagrees with both 1930 printings.

Inside: an introduction on the first Marple and the village novel versus Poirot's London; a Who's Who of the parish; five explainers (village England between the wars; the Church and vicarage world; policing a murder in 1930; Christie's career to 1930; the golden-age rules of fair play); a short life of Agatha Christie; an honest note on the period text; an appendix, "First Marple", on how the 1930 Marple differs from the later famous one; and discussion questions for every chapter plus a whole-book set.

The novel's text is public domain in the United States (Agatha Christie died in 1976, so it remains in copyright in life-plus-seventy countries). All companion material is original to this edition. A printable Book Club Kit is available in this store.