the elderly,unmarried english lady was between 65 and 70 years of age when she made her first appearance in the murder at the vicarage in 1930.she appeared in twelve novels and twenty short stories over a period of forty-one years---making her quite elderly by her last case!
in appearance,miss marple is a tall,thin woman with a pink,wrinkled face,pale blue eyes and snowy white hair which she wears piled upon her head in an old-fashioned manner.her harmless appearance,meandering conversation and ever-present knitting needles often mislead people into understimating her as simply a"dithering old maid".those who really know her recognize that she is sharp observer of human nature with"an uncanny talent of being always right".
despite a lifetime spent in the seemingly dull st.mary mead,miss marple is quite wordly in her recognition and acceptance that evil is all around us.as she often points out,her village and its envious provide examples of every character trait and evil in human nature that can be found in big cities.thus,her method of detection consists in finding parallels between life and people in st.mary mead and happenings in the outside world