Elephants Can Remember - References To Other Works

References To Other Works

• The character of Superintendent Spence had previously appeared in Taken at the Flood, Mrs McGinty's Dead and Hallowe'en Party. The last two of these cases are discussed in Chapter 5 of the novel, along with the case retold in Five Little Pigs.

• Mr. Goby is a recurring character in many of the later Poirot novels. Although he had not appeared personally in the previous novel, Hallowe'en Party he is mentioned as having contributed to that investigation in Chapter 21 of that novel.

• In Chapter 3, Mrs. Oliver fondly recalls a copy of the book Enquire Within Upon Everything that had been owned by her Aunt Alice. This is also the book in a copy of which a will had been concealed in Hallowe’en Party. The book is best remembered today, however, as the inspiration for a program called ENQUIRE written in 1980 by Tim Berners-Lee and which anticipated the functionality of wikis.

• In the Miss Marple story A Murder is Announced, the character Edmund Swettenham, a writer, announces a play he has written after the murder is solved, similarly titled Elephants Do Forget. Its author described it as "a roaring farce in three acts".