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Ngaio ( SAMPA naI@U) Marsh was educated at St Margaret's College in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she was a foundation pupil. She studied painting at the Canterbury College school of Art before becoming an actress with the Allan Wilkie company touring New Zealand. From 1928 onward she divided her time between living in England and in her native New Zealand. She was honoured with a DBE (Dame Commander of the British Empire) in 1966.

Internationally she is best known for her 32 detective novels published between 1934 and 1982. Along with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Dorothy L. Sayers she was classed as one of the four original 'Queens of Crime' - female British crime writers who dominated the crime fiction genre of the 1930s and 1940sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s Years: 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 Events and trends Technology First nuclear bomb First cruise missile, the. Of the four, her work shows the greatest depth of characterisation, and often carries a vein of humour.

All her books feature British CIDCID can stand for more than one thing. The CID is an acronym within the British police force and stands for Criminal Investigation Department. These are effectively the plain-clothes detectives. CID was an acronym for the British Committee of Imperial Def detective Roderick Alleyn and most are set in England or New Zealand (with Alleyn either on holiday or on secondment to the New Zealand police). Several novels feature Marsh's other loves, the theatre (Vintage Murder, Final Curtain, Light Thickens) and paintingThis article is about the painting of a surface for artistic reasons. Painting is also the utilitarian painting of objects and buildings, often done to provide a protective coating or for aesthetic reasons. One possible process for decorative painting of. Alleyn marries a painter who he meets during an investigation.

Marsh's first love, however, was the theatre, and in New Zealand she is remembered more for her theatrical endeavours than her detective fiction. In 1942 she produced a modern-dress HamletThe Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is a tragedy by William Shakespeare and one of his most well-known and oft-quoted plays. Written between 1598 and the summer of 1602, this masterpiece of Elizabethan theatre first appeared in print in 1603 in a ver for the Canterbury University College Drama Society (now UCDS), the first of many Shakespearian productions with the society until 1969For other uses, see Number 1969. For the movie, see 1969 (movie). Events January January 1 Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest selling British Sunday newspaper The News Of The World January 5 The Derry Riots leave over 100 people i. In 1944, Hamlet and a production of Othello toured a theatre-starved New Zealand to rapturous acclaim. In 1949, assisted by entrepreneur Dan O'Connor, her student players toured Australia with a new version of Othello and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. In the 1950s she was involved with the New Zealand Players , a relatively short-lived attempt at a national professional touring repertory company.

She lived long enough to see New Zealand with a viable professional theatre industry with realistic Arts Council support, with many of her protègès to the forefront. The 430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of Canterbury is named in her honour.

Ngaio Marsh published a lyrical but not very revealing autobiography, Black Beech & Honeydew (Collins) in 1966. Margaret Lewis published an authorized biography, Ngaio Marsh, A Life (BooksEnthsiast.com) in 1991.