Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories is a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 collection written by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

 and first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club

Collins Crime Club

The Collins Crime Club was an imprint of UK book publishers William Collins & Co Ltd and ran from May 6, 1930 to April 1994. Customers registered their name and address with the club and were sent a newsletter every three months which advised them of the latest books which had been or were to be...

 in October 1979

1979 in literature

The year 1979 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*V.C...

 retailing at £

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

4.50. It was the last Christie book to be published under the Collins Crime Club imprint although HarperCollins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

 continue to be the writer's UK publishers.

The book contains eight short stories and did not appear in the US.

List of stories

• 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

Literary significance and reception

Robert Barnard

Robert Barnard

Robert Barnard is an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.- Life and work :Born in Essex, Barnard was educated at the Colchester Royal Grammar School and at Balliol College in Oxford....

: "Posthumous collection, containing several good and good-ish Marple cases previously only available in the States. Also two supernatural stories, which Christie did not have the stylistic resources to bring off successfully."

Publication history

• 1978, Ulverscroft Large-print Edition, Hardcover, ISBN 0-70-892346-1
• 1979, Collins Crime Club (London), October 1979, Hardcover, 140 pp ISBN 0-002-31596-3
• 1980, Fontana Books (Imprint of HarperCollins
  HarperCollins
  HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
  
  ), Paperback

First publication of stories

The first UK magazine publication of all the stories is as follows:

• Strange Jest: First published in issue 643 of the Strand Magazine
  Strand Magazine
  The Strand Magazine was a monthly magazine composed of fictional stories and factual articles founded by George Newnes. It was first published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950 running to 711 issues, though the first issue was on sale well before Christmas 1890.Its immediate...
  
  in July 1944 under the title of The Case of the Buried Treasure. (This was the final short story Christie wrote for the Strand.)
• The Tape-Measure Murder: First published in issue 614 of the Strand Magazine in February 1942 under the title of The Case of the Retired Jeweller.
• The Case of the Caretaker: First published in issue 613 of the Strand Magazine in January 1941.
• The Case of the Perfect Maid: First published in issue 616 of the Strand Magazine in April 1942 under the shortened title of The Perfect Maid.
• Sanctuary: First published in the October 1954 issue of Woman's Journal. This story was specially written by Christie for the Westminster Abbey
  Westminster Abbey
  The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
  
   restoration appeal fund of that year. The story was sold to the highest bidder with the funds going to the appeal. The Magazine did not state the sum that they paid but noted that it was "considerable".
• The Dressmaker's Doll: First published in the December 1958 issue of Woman's Journal.
• Miss Marple Tells a Story was not written for magazine publication initially but was a special commission from the BBC
  BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
  
   for a series called Short Story as announced in The Times
  The Times
  The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
  
  on 27 March 1934. It is further unusual in that the story was read out by Christie herself, in the manner of her previous broadcasts of Behind the Screen
  The Scoop and Behind The Screen
  The Scoop & Behind The Screen are both collaborative detective serials written by members of the Detection Club which were broadcast weekly by their authors on the BBC National Programme in 1930 and 1931 with the scripts then being published in The Listener within a week after broadcast...
  
  (1930) and The Scoop
  The Scoop and Behind The Screen
  The Scoop & Behind The Screen are both collaborative detective serials written by members of the Detection Club which were broadcast weekly by their authors on the BBC National Programme in 1930 and 1931 with the scripts then being published in The Listener within a week after broadcast...
  
  (1931). The twenty-minute broadcast took place on Friday, 11 May 1934 at 9.20pm on the National Programme
  BBC National Programme
  The BBC National Programme was a BBC radio station from the 1920s until the outbreak of World War II.-Foundation:When the BBC first began transmissions on 14 November 1922, the technology for both national coverage and joint programming between transmitters did not exist – transmitter powers were...
  
  . The text was first published in Volume 3, Issue 64 of the weekly UK magazine Home Journal on 25 May 1935 under the title Behind Closed Doors and with an illustration by Michael Bernard.

• The Daily Mirror of 6 April 1934 stated that In a Glass Darkly was being read out by Christie on BBC Radio
  BBC Radio
  BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
  
   that night as part of the Short Story series. However, the programme billings on the same page stated the broadcast was by Dorothy L. Sayers
  Dorothy L. Sayers
  Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...
  
   with a story titled Dilemma and the Radio Times
  Radio Times
  Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
  
  also states that this was the broadcast made. The text of Christie's story was first published in the December 1934 issue of the monthly Woman's Journal.

External links

• Miss Marple's Final Cases at the official Agatha Christie website