Talk:Sleeping Murder

untitled
Where are the indications that the doctor had an incestous desire for his half-sister?This article is not very well-written.Guru-45 02:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guru-45 (talk • contribs)

Although the 2005 television adaptation is entertaining it keeps only the thread of the plot, inventing characters and incidents and discarding others. The theatrical troupe, "The Funnybones", which plays an important part in the adaptation,--Saxophobia 00:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC) is not in the novel

I don't think this is a very well written article. I do not think the author correctly interprets all parts of the novel either.

Miss Marple
The current article says: "Christie wrote Sleeping Murder during World War II as a fitting end to Miss Marple's series of novels." Do we actually have any knowledge/documentation that it was ever intended to be an 'end' to the Miss Marple series? To me, it doesn't seem to have any 'this is the end' feeling about it. I wonder if the person writing that part of the article got it confused up with 'Curtain'. To me, Nemesis, which actually WAS the last Miss Marple novel, has a much more valedictory feeling about it. Marieblasdell 02:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree...it doesn't really have that end feel to it. Plus, perhaps a section covering the tv version's plot would be nice? As its so different...--Snewo 03:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll second that. There is absolutely nothing about this book which suggests it was ever intended as the last Marple novel. Anyone who isn't familiar with the Christie chronology would not be able to tell this was the last book just by reading it. As for why Christie withheld it from publication for 30+ years, we can only speculate.Sandmaster (talk) 00:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Section on history of writing and publication is revised by someone prior to me. I edited it to two sections (remarks about the changing title are a new section). Sources are given in her autobiography and her literary correspondence that she intended the novel to be the last Miss Marple published, though at the same time she gave its setting in the 1930s. Yes, that is a contradiction in chronology! But there it is. She wrote this novel and a last novel for Poirot in the early years of WWII. Poirot dies in his last novel, so there is no doubt it is the last. Miss Marple lives on, so the confusion of the chronology of the fictional character remains. I do not have access to the biographies and autobiography cited as the sources, so anyone who does, can improve my text. I edited what I found because it was hard to follow, and failed to use reference notations for the sources. I made reference notations for each biography and the autobiography, and found two cites on line for her literary correspondence being held at the University of Exeter library. --Prairieplant (talk) 04:37, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

=When was written= I'm currently reading John Currans's Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks and, according to it, the book was still being planned in the end of 40s. Curran, as a proof, gives quotations from Christie's notebooks. Who has original English version of Curran's book to check my edition to the article and write what exactly did Curran mean? Gevorg89 (talk) 17:51, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * , please see the revised text on this topic. Various biographers have different conclusions. Some editor prior to me had all the sources at hand, to determine the author's intent that this be the last Miss Marple story published, while set in the 1930s, without the complications to life once the war began. See edited text for comments I left, as a couple of parts written by the prior editor are not clear to me, which author found those letters in her archives? --Prairieplant (talk) 04:43, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I restored the text with inline citations. Changes made by two prior editors do not put a different view forward, and it is a big negative that the inline citations (references by page number place after the sentence they support) were removed and not replaced with others. The style of mentioning a book by title and author in the text, without page citations, is less specific than inline citations, especially when different researchers came to different conclusions. It would be useful if other editors who have the sources at hand can find pages with relevant text on the time of publication, and use inline citations. Inline Citation          --Prairieplant (talk) 14:42, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Set in the 1940s
There are some hints that the story might be set in the 1940s. The only date given in the story is "1920" which occurs two times.

House agent Galbraith "...was out in Calcutta for a time. Then the war came and in 1920 he came into the firm..." Galbraith remembers that Major Halliday "Took St. Catherines -- six guineas a week". That would have been 19 years before the main story, which would be set in 1939 at the earliest.

Gardener Manning "used ... to be employed at Dr Kennedy's." and remembers it "Must have been 1920 and on". Manning gives some background about Helen Kennedy: The sabotaged tennis court, Helen falling over a scraper ("Not much more than a graze, it seemed, but it wouldn't heal"), the affair with Jackie Afflick. All of this happened before Major Halliday met Helen on the boat back from India. Also before that time, Walter Fane went to India after he is refused by Helen. As Fane's mother recalls: "And he hadn't been out there a year ... his impudent chit of a girl [Helen] changes her mind and writes out that she'd like to marry him after all". This would put the main story into 1940 or later.--93.220.12.144 (talk) 23:04, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Short description
I do not know who sees the short description other than reading the Edit version, but this novel, like Curtain (novel) was written in the early 1940s and published over 30 years later. Should the two articles have similar short descriptions, ? --Prairieplant (talk) 17:52, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * People using the mobile interface – which is actually most people (though most editors use desktop) – see the short description. See WP:Short description. If you want to see (and potentially change) short descriptions go to preferences, gadgets, and (under editing) turn on shortdesc helper.
 * Maybe the creation date should be added. The short description should be short and the creation date seemed to me here to be rather uncertain for a brief statement. But whatever. Some people seem to think short descriptions should not contain dates but I think this is silly. The majority view is they should act as an explanatory supplement of crucial information not contained in the article title itself. For me "novel" ("detective novel" might have been better), "Agatha Christie" and "date" seemed appropriate and I was bold in also adding the main protagonist. Thincat (talk) 08:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I take no issue with the short description itself. Both Curtain (1975) and Sleeping Murder (1976) are on my Watchlist, so I saw the short description you added for each novel, one the last published Poirot novel and the other the last published Miss Marple novel. Both were written during the Second World War, the early 1940s, and not published until the 1970s, the last for each detective. I simply thought that the short descriptions ought to match for both novels and the short descriptions do not match right now. Each novel sat in a safe deposit box all those years, . I guess I was not clear enough in my first post to make that point.


 * I will have to notice more details the next time I look at an article on my phone, and notice the short description. I am bold enough to edit on the smart phone now and then, as well as read articles. Then I go back to my lap top or desk top to clean up or do things that are far easier to do on those machines.  --Prairieplant (talk) 00:05, 23 September 2020 (UTC)