'The Murder at the Vicarage, The 1930 Text' Restores the First Miss Marple Novel

"The Murder at the Vicarage, The 1930 Text" Restores the First Miss Marple Novel, Collated Against Both 1930 First-Edition Witnesses

The Companion Classics edition prints Agatha Christie's complete 1930 text, ten readings restored, with a "First Marple" appendix and discussion questions for every chapter

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2026, Before Miss Marple was a legend, she was the village's sharpest inconvenience, and this is where she starts. A new Companion Classics edition, The Murder at the Vicarage, The 1930 Text, The First Miss Marple Novel, presents Agatha Christie's first Marple novel (1930) in its complete original text. Colonel Lucius Protheroe, the most disliked man in St Mary Mead, is found shot dead in the Vicar's study, and the case is cracked not by the police but by an elderly spinster the whole village underestimates. The story is told by the Vicar himself, the Rev. Leonard Clement.

The text is taken from Project Gutenberg and collated against the American and British first-edition witnesses, the Dodd, Mead printing (New York) and the Collins-line British text (London), with ten readings restored where the modern reprint behind the file disagrees with both 1930 printings. All 32 chapters are here, 69,527 words, including the 1930 edition's own dedication, "To Rosalind."

The companion material, all of it original to this edition, includes an introduction on the first Marple and the village novel versus Poirot's London; a Who's Who of the parish; five explainers, village England between the wars, the Church and vicarage world, policing a murder in 1930, Christie's career to 1930, and the golden-age rules of fair play; a short life of Agatha Christie; an honest note on the period text; an appendix, "First Marple," on how the 1930 Marple differs from the later famous one; and discussion questions for every chapter plus a whole-book set.

Alongside the book, The Murder at the Vicarage, Book Club Kit offers the edition's discussion material as a printable PDF (26 pages, US Letter) for reading groups. The kit is available for $7 through the editor's Payhip store: https://payhip.com/b/IW9AR

The Murder at the Vicarage, The 1930 Text is available now as an eBook ($9.99) through Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/N9tlW, paperback and hardcover print editions follow on Amazon. The novel's text is public domain in the United States (published 1930). Agatha Christie died in 1976, so the novel remains in copyright in life-plus-seventy countries; this edition is published for US distribution first. The author's and character's names are used only to identify the work. This edition is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any rights holder, and no estate branding or film or television likeness is used anywhere in it.

About the editor

Horace Harriott Jr. is a New York-based author and editor of more than two dozen books, including The Side Hustle Handbook, Master Playbook and The Ultimate Commissary Cookbook. This edition is part of his Companion Classics series of reading-together editions of public-domain classics.

About the book

The Murder at the Vicarage, The 1930 Text, The First Miss Marple Novel, Agatha Christie (author), Horace Harriott Jr. (editor). Companion Classics, independently published, October 2026. Novel text: the 1930 first editions (Collins Crime Club, London; Dodd, Mead and Company, New York); 69,527 words; interior proof 361 pages, 6 x 9 in.