The first Miss Marple novel, The Murder at the Vicarage, was published in 1930. Agatha Christie’s book appeared in the United Kingdom through the Collins Crime Club on 20 October 1930, with the American edition following later that year through Dodd, Mead and Company.
The novel introduced Miss Marple as a village detective in St Mary Mead, although Christie had already used the character in magazine short stories beginning in 1927. Those earlier stories were later collected in The Thirteen Problems, published in 1932, which is a common source of date confusion.
The story is narrated largely by Leonard Clement, the vicar of St Mary Mead, after Colonel Lucius Protheroe is found murdered in the vicarage. Miss Marple’s knowledge of village gossip and human behavior helps her see through the apparent clues. The book was followed by The Body in the Library in 1942, and Christie later adapted it for stage, radio, television, and graphic-novel formats.