Agatha Christie used her grandmother as a model for Miss Marple, new tapes reveal
Lying undisturbed for more than 40 years, audio tapes bearing the unmistakeable voice of Agatha Christie have been discovered that show how she modelled Miss Marple on her own grandmother.
Her grandson Mathew Prichard stumbled upon 27 of the half-hour long tapes in a dusty cardboard box as he cleaned out a storeroom in Greenway, the Georgian property overlooking the Dart estuary in Devon that Christie called "the loveliest place in the world".
The tapes, which nobody knew existed, are the raw material on which part of her autobiography was based.
Working alone at her own unhurried pace, the ageing Christie dictated the tapes on a Grundig Memorette machine in the mid 1960s.
Her rich, authoritative voice offers a wealth of insights into her life and how she developed her most beloved characters.
Among them is her description of Jane Marple - and how she partially based the genteel sleuth on her grandmother.
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Her grandson Mathew Prichard stumbled upon 27 of the half-hour long tapes in a dusty cardboard box as he cleaned out a storeroom in Greenway, the Georgian property overlooking the Dart estuary in Devon that Christie called "the loveliest place in the world".
The tapes, which nobody knew existed, are the raw material on which part of her autobiography was based.
Working alone at her own unhurried pace, the ageing Christie dictated the tapes on a Grundig Memorette machine in the mid 1960s.
Her rich, authoritative voice offers a wealth of insights into her life and how she developed her most beloved characters.
Among them is her description of Jane Marple - and how she partially based the genteel sleuth on her grandmother.