WRITER

Ngaio Marsh

1895 - 1982

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Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh (; 23 April 1895 – 18 February 1982) was a New Zealand mystery writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966. As a crime writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Marsh is known as one of the "Queens of Crime", along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Margery Allingham. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Ngaio Marsh has received more than 764,062 page views. Her biography is available in 28 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 25 in 2019). Ngaio Marsh is the 4,113th most popular writer (down from 2,630th in 2019), the 41st most popular biography from New Zealand (down from 26th in 2019) and the 4th most popular New Zealander Writer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 760k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 49.99

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 28

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 2.50

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.97

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Death and the Dancing Footman (Roderick Alleyn #11)
Fiction, Fiction in English, Mystery
With the notion of bringing together the most bitter of enemies for his own amusement, a bored, mischievous millionaire throws a house party. As a brutal snowstorm strands the unhappy guests, the party receives a most unwelcome visitor: death. Now the brilliant inspector Roderick Alleyn must step in to decipher who at the party is capable of cold-blooded murder. Inspector Alleyn receives a late invitation to a decidedly unsocial function, when a jaded millionaire is murdered at his own gala event. Reissue.
1941
Singing in the shrouds
Fiction, Police, Roderick Alleyn (Fictitious character)
With this novel of mounting tension among apparently normal people, Ngaio Marsh achieved a triumph on a level with her most famous detective novels Surfeit of Lampreys, Scales of Justice and Off With His Head. On a cold February night the police find the third corpse on the quayside in the Pool of London, her body covered with flower petals and pearls. The killer walked away, singing. When the cargo ship, Cape Farewell, sets sail, she carries nine passengers, one of whom is known to be the murderer. Which is why Superintendent Roderick Alleyn joins the ship at Portsmouth on the most difficult assignment of his professional career...
1958
Vintage Murder (Roderick Alleyn #5)
Fiction, Roderick Alleyn (Fictitious character), Police
Death served well-chilled The leading lady of a theater company touring New Zealand was stunningly beautiful. No one-including her lover-understood why she married the company's pudgy producer. But did she rig a huge jeroboam of champagne to kill her husband during a cast party? Did her sweetheart? Or was another villain waiting in the wings? On a holiday down under, Inspector Roderick Alleyn must uncork this mystery and uncover a devious killer...
1937
Colour scheme
Mystery, Police, Open Library Staff Picks
Often regarded as her most interesting book and set on New Zealand's North Island, Ngaio Marsh herself considered this to be her best-written novel. It was a horrible death -- Maurice Questing was lured into a pool of boiling mud and left there to die. Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn, far from home on a wartime quest for German agents, knew that any number of people could have killed him: the English exiles he'd hated, the New Zealanders he'd despised or the Maoris he'd insulted. Even the spies he'd thwarted -- if he wasn't a spy himself!
1943
Death in a White Tie (Roderick Alleyn #7)
Fiction, Fiction in English, Mystery
A body in the back of a taxi begins an elegantly constructed mystery, perhaps the finest of Marsh's 1930s novels.The season had begun. Debutantes and chaperones were planning their luncheons, teas, dinners, balls. And the blackmailer was planning his strategies, stalking his next victim.But Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn knew that something was up. He had already planted his friend Lord Robert Gospell at the scene.But someone else got there first...
1938
Final Curtain (Roderick Alleyn #14)
Fiction, Fiction in English, New Zealand Detective and mystery stories
After a lethal birthday dinner of champagne and crayfish, famed Shakespearian actor Sir Henry is dead, and the cast of suspects is a mile long.
1947

Page views of Ngaio Marshes by language

Over the past year Ngaio Marsh has had the most page views in the with 122,549 views, followed by French (10,454), and Russian (8,612). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Bulgarian (366.67%), Basque (73.64%), and Japanese (42.73%)

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Ngaio Marsh ranks 4,113 out of 7,302. Before her are Berta Zuckerkandl, Marietta Shaginyan, Marie-Claire Blais, Mona Simpson, Johann Georg von Hahn, and Lisa Tetzner. After her are Ō no Yasumaro, Barthold Heinrich Brockes, Cemal Süreya, Ken Adam, Maximilian Harden, and Peter Cheyney.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1895, Ngaio Marsh ranks 187. Before her are Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Ayna Sultanova, Louis Raymond, Giovanni Brunero, August Emil Fieldorf, and Carl Westergren. After her are John J. McCloy, Henry Gunther, Paul Neményi, Harold Hotelling, Giuseppe Bottai, and John Diefenbaker. Among people deceased in 1982, Ngaio Marsh ranks 162. Before her are Fritz Laband, Adoniran Barbosa, Giorgio Abetti, Antonio Guzmán Fernández, Marietta Shaginyan, and René Dubos. After her are Seraphim Rose, Alexandre Alexeieff, Fazlur Rahman Khan, Jimmy McGrory, Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, and Juan O'Gorman.

Others Born in 1895

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Others Deceased in 1982

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In New Zealand

Among people born in New Zealand, Ngaio Marsh ranks 41 out of 303. Before her are Clive Revill (1930), Taika Waititi (1975), Janet Frame (1924), Gary Thain (1948), Rob Hall (1961), and Ronald Syme (1903). After her are Keith Urban (1967), Jacinda Ardern (1980), William Phillips (1914), Roy Kerr (1934), Anthony Wilding (1883), and Antony Starr (1975).

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Among WRITERS In New Zealand

Among writers born in New Zealand, Ngaio Marsh ranks 4. Before her are Katherine Mansfield (1888), Richard Curtis (1956), and Janet Frame (1924). After her are Hugh Walpole (1884), Margaret Mahy (1936), Keri Hulme (1947), Anthony McCarten (1961), Ruth Park (1917), and Philippa Boyens (2000).

New Zealander born Writers

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