Was Miss Marple ever married?
Jane Marple who single-handedly solved 342 domestic murders in the crime hotspot of St Mary Mead between 1930 and 1971, is often remembered as a spinster, perhaps because she always styled herself ‘Miss’. In fact, she was briefly married to the Conservative politician Ernest Marples (later Baron Marples of Wallasey), but they divorced after only three months, Ernest Marples citing his wife’s ‘extreme nosiness’ in the divorce petition and Jane Marples (she later dropped the ‘s’) countering with an accusation that he was a ‘suspected murderer’. Though she made three further marriages, Miss Marple retained her original married name for the rest of her professional life. Two subsequent marriages, to film actor Cary Grant and escapologist Harry Houdini, both proved short-lived.
