Ngaio Marsh

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Standard Name: Marsh, Ngaio
Birth Name: Edith Ngaio Marsh
NM , a New Zealander with strong ties to Britain, is known there and worldwide for her thirty-one detective novels issued between 1934 and 1982 (and occasionally published in the USA ahead of the British edition). Less well known is her career as a theatrical producer and director in New Zealand, and sometimes in Britain, which included writing about theatre and as a playwright. Her non-fiction writings include, as well as those about theatre, travel journalism and comment on New Zealand, and an autobiography.
Black and white photo of Ngaio Marsh, standing in a spotlight and tilted backwards. Her black dress and dark hair are dramatically lit, and her hand holding a cigarette is doubled by its shadow behind.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence P. D. James
PDJ followed the English tradition of detective-story writing that has continued from the 1920s and 1930s, a genre in which many women have held dominant positions. She spoke of her adolescent reading as influenced in...
Literary responses Ruth Pitter
Nineteen years after publication, New Zealand detective writer Ngaio Marsh noted the delight and wonder with which she discovered a copy of this book in the Christchurch Public Library.
Marsh, Ngaio et al. “From Gratitude”. Ruth Pitter: Homage to a Poet, edited by Arthur Russell, Rapp and Whiting, 1969, pp. 96-7.
96
Reception Margery Allingham
This honour was one she shared with Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh . Penguin sold nearly a million copies of this edition, to add to the half million of her titles they had sold already...
Textual Features Margery Allingham
Campion later developed more complexity and depth—partly as a result of war experiences—and became a professional detective. But he remained unhardened, an anomaly in his profession, in something the manner of the later Inspector Alleyn...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Agatha Christie
Although AC was supposed to be writing propaganda, her opinions on her own chosen genre were too strong to be muzzled. Having begun with praise of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , John Dickson Carr ...

Timeline

6 February 1939: Raymond Chandler, aged fifty-one, published...

Writing climate item

6 February 1939

Raymond Chandler , aged fifty-one, published The Big Sleep, the first and one of the best-known of his seven Philip Marlowe novels, famous as hard-boiled detective fiction.
“Detective Stories”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 1936, 11 Mar. 1939, p. 152.
152
Borne Back Daily. 2001, http://borneback.com/ .
6 February 2008

Texts

Marsh, Ngaio. A Man Lay Dead. Geoffrey Bles, 1934.
Marsh, Ngaio. Black Beech and Honeydew: An Autobiography. Collins, 1981.
Marsh, Ngaio. Clutch of Constables. Collins, 1968.
Marsh, Ngaio. Colour Scheme. Collins, 1943.
Marsh, Ngaio. Colour Scheme. Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1970.
Marsh, Ngaio. Death and the Dancing Footman. Little, Brown and Company, 1941.
Marsh, Ngaio. False Scent. Collins, 1960.
Marsh, Ngaio et al. “From Gratitude”. Ruth Pitter: Homage to a Poet, edited by Arthur Russell, Rapp and Whiting, 1969, pp. 96-7.
Marsh, Ngaio. Grave Mistake. Collins, 1978.
Marsh, Ngaio. Hand in Glove. Collins, 1962.
Marsh, Ngaio. Killer Dolphin. Little, Brown, 1966.
Marsh, Ngaio. Light Thickens. Collins, 1982.
Marsh, Ngaio. Overture to Death. Collins, 1939.
Marsh, Ngaio. Photo-finish. Collins, 1980.
Marsh, Ngaio. Surfeit of Lampreys. Collins, 1941.
Marsh, Ngaio, and Henry Jellett. The Nursing-Home Murder. Geoffrey Bles, 1935.