Author. She received world-wide acclaim as a 20th century writer of 32 detective novels. Along with Agatha Christie, she is considered to be one of the main female British crime writers of the 1930s and 1940s. Born Edith Ngaio Marsh, her name "Ngaio" translates from the Polynesian language of Manori to "Reflection on the water." Her first love was not writing but the the theater, and in New Zealand she is best remembered for her work on stage rather than her fiction as she produced and directed numerous plays there. Starting in 1909, she also studied art at the Canterbury School of Art and belonged to a New Zealand are "group" which held her exhibitions in 1927, 1928, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1940, and 1947. From 1928 she split her time between the United Kingdom and New Zealand writing her first novel "A Man Lay Dead" in 1934. All of her works have the fictional character of CID Detective Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard with the settings are mainly in either England or New Zealand. She was created a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1966. Her home on the Cashmere Hills is preserved as a museum. At the University of Canterbury, there is a 430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre in her honor. She died at home within days of approving her last novel, "Light Thickens." Her autobiography, "Black Beech and Honeydew," was first published in 1965.
Author. She received world-wide acclaim as a 20th century writer of 32 detective novels. Along with Agatha Christie, she is considered to be one of the main female British crime writers of the 1930s and 1940s. Born Edith Ngaio Marsh, her name "Ngaio" translates from the Polynesian language of Manori to "Reflection on the water." Her first love was not writing but the the theater, and in New Zealand she is best remembered for her work on stage rather than her fiction as she produced and directed numerous plays there. Starting in 1909, she also studied art at the Canterbury School of Art and belonged to a New Zealand are "group" which held her exhibitions in 1927, 1928, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1940, and 1947. From 1928 she split her time between the United Kingdom and New Zealand writing her first novel "A Man Lay Dead" in 1934. All of her works have the fictional character of CID Detective Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard with the settings are mainly in either England or New Zealand. She was created a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1966. Her home on the Cashmere Hills is preserved as a museum. At the University of Canterbury, there is a 430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre in her honor. She died at home within days of approving her last novel, "Light Thickens." Her autobiography, "Black Beech and Honeydew," was first published in 1965.
Bio by: Bunny Boiler
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