Ngaio Marsh (1895–1982)
Author of A Man Lay Dead
About the Author
Ngaio Marsh was born on April 23, 1895 in Christchurch, New Zealand. She attended St. Mary's College and Canterbury University. She worked in the theater acting, producing, and even painting scenery. She was a partner in an interior decorating business in England from 1928 to 1932. She later show more returned to New Zealand and produced plays for a Shakespearean repertory company. She also worked with the Drama Department of Canterbury University. During World War II, she served in the New Zealand Red Cross Transport Unit. She traveled to England frequently and founded the British Commonwealth Theatre Company in 1949. Her first novel, A Man Lay Dead, was published in 1934. She wrote more than 40 books including the Roderick Alleyn Mysteries series and Black Beech and Honeydew. She also wrote theatrical and television plays. She was named to the Order of the British Empire in 1949 and was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966. The Mystery Writers of America named her a Grand Master in 1977. She died on February 18, 1982 at the age of 82. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Ngaio Marsh
Scales of Justice / Death of a Fool / Tied Up in Tinsel / Grave Mistake / Photo Finish (1983) 72 copies
The Ngaio Marsh Collection 03: Death in a White Tie / Overture to Death / Death at the Bar (2009) 64 copies
Curtain Calls: Three Great Mysteries..Enter a Murderer..Night At the Vulcan...Killer Dolphin (1966) 55 copies
The Ngaio Marsh Collection 04: A Surfeit of Lampreys / Death and the Dancing Footman / Colour Scheme (2009) 54 copies
The Ngaio Marsh Collection 09: Clutch of Constables / When in Rome / Tied Up in Tinsel (2010) 45 copies
The Ngaio Marsh Collection 05: Died in the Wool / Final Curtain / Swing, Brother, Swing (1998) 45 copies
The Ngaio Marsh Collection 07: Off With His Head / Singing in the Shrouds / False Scent (2009) 43 copies
The Ngaio Marsh Collection 11: Photo-Finish / Light Thickens / Black Beech and Honeydew (1782) 34 copies
The Ngaio Marsh Collection 06: Opening Night / Spinsters in Jeopardy / Scales of Justice (2009) 28 copies
The Roderick Alleyn Mysteries: The Nursing Home Murder; Death in a White Tie; Final Curtain (1993) 24 copies
Three-act special; 3 complete mystery novels: A wreath for Rivera. Spinsters in jeopardy. Night at the Vulcan (1960) 23 copies
Singing in the Shrouds (abridged) 2 copies
Ngaio Marsh 2 copies
Enter A Murderer; A Man Lay Dead; Death At The Bar; Death And The Dancing Footman; Overture To Death, [in 5 volumes] (1941) 2 copies
Death In a White Tie, Death Of A Peer, Hand in Glove, Death And The Dancing Footwoman, Death At The Bar (1982) 1 copy
Artistas do crime, Os 1 copy
The Roderick Alleyn Mysteries: Surfeit of Lampreys, Death and the Dancing Footman, and Colour Scheme 1 copy
A Man Lay Dead / Enter a Murderer / The Nursing Home Murder (The Ngaio Marsh Collection, Band 1) 1 copy
Opening Night | When in Rome 1 copy
The Christmas tree 1 copy
Death in the garden 1 copy
Associated Works
Grande Dames of Detection: Two Centuries of Sleuthing Stories by the Gentle Sex (1973) — Contributor — 32 copies
In Deadly Earnest: A Collection of Fiction by New Zealand Women 1870s–1980s (1989) — Contributor — 7 copies
Detective Omnibus — Contributor — 6 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Marsh, Dame Edith Ngaio
- Birthdate
- 1895-04-23
- Date of death
- 1982-02-18
- Burial location
- Church of the Holy Innocents Churchyard Peel Forest, Timaru District, Canterbury, New Zealand
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- New Zealand
- Birthplace
- Christchurch, New Zealand
- Place of death
- Christchurch, New Zealand
- Places of residence
- England, UK
Christchurch, New Zealand - Education
- St. Margaret's College (Christchurch, New Zealand)
Canterbury College (School of Art) - Occupations
- theatrical producer
interior decorator
novelist
actor
painter
detective novelist - Organizations
- Detection Club
- Awards and honors
- Order of the British Empire (Dame Commander, 1966)
MWA Grand Master (1978) - Short biography
- Ngaio Marsh was the pen name of Edith Ngaio Marsh, born in Christchurch, New Zealand to English immigrants. Her name, pronounced "ny-o," was a Maori word meaning "reflections on the water." She attended the private St. Margaret’s College, where she showed an aptitude for acting and writing, producing poetry, prose and plays.
In 1913 she entered Canterbury College School of Art and left in 1919 in order to become a professional painter. The opportunity to tour with the Allan Wilkie Shakespeare Company delayed her plans until later in the 1920s. In 1928, Marsh made her first visit to England, where she worked in the theatre, interior design, and travel writing. She began writing novels and soon embarked on a prolific crime-writing career. In 1934, she published A Man Lay Dead, featuring the very English Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn. During World War II, she served in a New Zealand Red Cross Transport Unit, driving repatriated soldiers in a hospital bus. By the 1950s, Marsh was considered a “Queen of Crime” along with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, and Dorothy L. Sayers.
Marsh was passionately attached to her native country and returned to live in New Zealand but made frequent trips to England and other countries. She became a leader of the New Zealand theatre, mounting numerous Shakespeare plays. In her career, Ngaio Marsh wrote 32 novels and an autobiography, Black Beech and Honeydew (1965). She never married. Margaret Lewis wrote an authorized biography, Ngaio Marsh, A Life in 1991. New Zealand art historian Joanne Drayton's biography, Ngaio Marsh: Her Life in Crime, was published in 2008.
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British Mystery (18)
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Ambleside Books (1)
Christmas Books (1)
1960s (2)
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 105
- Also by
- 47
- Members
- 27,922
- Popularity
- #728
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 577
- ISBNs
- 1,257
- Languages
- 14
- Favorited
- 69
An amateur comedic play in a local village to raise money for a new church piano for the church hall. What could go wrong? In the Village of Vale-of-Pen-Cuckoo, quite a bit. Even though the cast is small and consists of local talents, bringing them together is a combustible mixture that brings to a head simmering troubles in the village that results in murder. The production is directed by Dinah Copeland, the daughter of Rector Copeland. She is the one person with some professional stage experience. She’s also the serious love interest of Henry Jerningham, son of the village squire and constable, Jocelyn Jerningham. Jocelyn and his cousin Eleanor Prentice both oppose the marriage, albeit for different reasons. Jocelyn is a member of the species of impoverished landholders and Henry needs to marry into wealth, not a qualification of the Rector and his daughter. Eleanor, a religious spinster, came to live with her cousin after the death of Jocelyn’s wife as a kind of lady of the manor. Dinah, she fears, will supplant her.
This is not her only jealousy. When she moved to Pen Cuckoo, she developed a complicated friendship with another spinster, Idris Campanula. They loved to gossip about the rest of the village but saw each other as rivals for the affections of the rector who is trying his darnedest not to get entangled with either of them, who come to him with their “confessions” to spend time in spiritual intimacy with him
Meanwhile, the village newcomer, Selia Ross, is apparently having an affair with the handsome Dr. Templett, who has an invalid wife at home. Her suggested play is the one adopted, to the consternation of the two spinsters. Subsequently, Selia receives an anonymous and threatening letter, reeking of Idris Campanula’s favorite scent. She shares it with Dr. Templett. Meanwhile, Eleanor comes across Henry and Dinah in a passionate embrace on the day before the play and harsh words are spoken by all. Later that day Eleanor, coming for her confession with the rector, shows up at the very moment Idris throws herself in the rector’s unwilling arms. She was unseen and leaves, calling to make an excuse for cancelling.
Still, this cast manages to make it to the day of the play. Eleanor, chosen to play as overture to the play the “Venetian Overture” by Ethelbert Nevin, is found in pain in her dressing room from an infected finger. The doctor insists she must not play and Idris steps in triumphantly with her Prelude in C by Rachmaninoff. The two ladies had competed at gatherings with these pieces for years. This sounds like a comedic soap opera, right?
And then Idris Campanula plays the first three notes, stepping on the soft pedal with the third…and the piano seems to explode. When the smoke clears, Idris is slumped dead, a gunshot through the head, fired from inside the piano. They discover a gun, a Colt 32 belonging to Jocelyn, rigged with a “Twiddletoy” apparatus to fire when the soft peddle was depressed. The gun had been mentioned the previous evening at a cast gathering, was left loaded with a warning card in a box in the library, easily accessed from outside during the day. Anyone could have accessed it
But who was the intended victim, Idris or Eleanor? Idris substituted for Eleanor at the last minute, but as we see, there were people with motives to kill each woman. When a major theft ties up local investigators, Alleyn and his team are called in, along with his “Watson,” Nigel Bathgate to unravel this strange murder. Early on, they discover that the “Twiddletoy” belonged to the village prankster, Georgie Biggins, who had rigged up a water pistol. Somehow, another person had substituted the Colt for the water pistol. But when and how? Another woman had played the piano an hour before, using the soft pedal, with no lethal effect. And the stage was occupied in preparation for the play after that.
Alleyn must piece together the surviving cast’s movements and figure out the significance of a box at the church hall window with some fragments of rubber, and an onion found on the scene. Meanwhile, all the principals are withholding information, closed as only a secluded village can be.
It seemed to me that the character of Bathgate plays a much more minor role than in previous works. We also learn Alleyn is engaged to Troy, but apart from a love letter at the end, she’s absent, pursuing her own work. And Alleyn? He seems at his refined best, asking the hard questions with a velvet touch, not surprised by the transgressions common to adult human beings, and willing to keep quiet the things not essential to the case, all the while gathering and arranging the threads until the climatic scene where he calls the cast together one last time….… (more)