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14 Miss Marple’s Final Cases (1979)
Despite the title, the stories collected here recount cases from the middle of Miss Marple’s career They are: ‘Sanctuary’; ‘Strange Jest’; ‘Tape-Measure Murder’; ‘The Case of the Caretaker’; ‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’; ‘Miss Marple Tells a Story’; ‘The Dressmaker’s Doll’; ‘In a Glass Darkly’; ‘Greenshaw’s Folly’
The Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts): ‘When it all becomes clear as day, the reader can only say, “Nohy didn’t I think of that?” But he never does Mrs Christie at her best’
Charles Osborne on Miss Marple’s Final Cases
Miss Marple Short Stories (1979)
Miss Marple’s Final Cases and two other stories was published in the UK only, for the stories were already available in other volumes published in the USA Two of the stories, ‘The Dressmaker’s Doll’ and ‘Sanctuary’, are to be found in Double Sin (1961: see p 301); four stories, ‘Strange Jest’, ‘Tape Measure Murder’, ‘The Case of the Perfect Maid’ and ‘The Case of the Caretaker’, are fro two stories, ‘Miss Marple Tells a Story’ and ‘In a Glass Darkly’, coatta Mystery (1939: see p 175)
Of the eight stories, two (‘The Dressmaker’s Doll’ and ‘In a Glass Darkly’) are not Miss Marple adventures The reht not really to have been called Miss Marple’s Final Cases, for they are examples of that redoubtable lady in ether a collection of theazines in the past, the stories were being published in volume form for the first time in Great Britain A statement to this effect appeared in the ‘blurb’ on the inside of the front jacket It is, however, slightly inaccurate, for ‘Tape-Measure Murder’ had found its way into Thirteen for Luck, ‘a selection ofreaders’ which Collins had published in 1966
Problem at Pollensa Bay
About Charles Osborne
This essay was adapted froatha Christie: A Biographical Coatha Christie (1982, rev 1999) Mr Osborne was born in Brisbane in 1927 He is known internationally as an authority on opera, and has written a nu thener and His World (1977); and WH Auden: The Life of a Poet (1980) An addict of criatha Christie, Charles Osborne adapted the Christie plays Black Coffee (Poirot); Spider’s Web; and The Unexpected Guest into novels He lives in London
About Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crilish and another billion in 100 foreign languages She is the e, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare Mrs Christie is the author of eighty crime novels and short story collections, nineteen plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott
Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, ritten towards the end of World War I (during which she served in the Voluntary Aid Detachian investigator as destined to become the most popular detective in cri been rejected by a number of houses, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was eventually published by The Bodley Head in 1920
In 1926, now averaging a book a year, Agatha Christie wrote her er Ackroyd was the first of her books to be published by Williain
ning of an author-publisher relationship that lasted for fifty years and produced over seventy books The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was also the first of Agatha Christie’s works to be dramatised—as Alibi—and to have a successful run in London’s West End The Mousetrap, her most famous play, opened in 1952 and runs to this day at St Martin’s Theatre in the West End; it is the longest-running play in history
Agatha Christie was made a Dame in 1971 She died in 1976, since when a nu novel Sleeping Murder appeared in 1976, followed by An Autobiography and the short story collections Miss Marple’s Final Cases; Probleht Lasts In 1998, Black Coffee was the first of her plays to be novelised by Charles Osborne, Mrs Christie’s biographer
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