Rowan Gibbs and Richard Williams, Ngaio Marsh: A Bibliography
(Scunthorpe, UK, 1990)
A Man Lay Dead (London 1934; New York 1942);
Enter A Murder (London 1935; New York 1942);
The Nursing Home Murder with Henry Jellett (London 1935, New York, 1941);
Death in Ecstasy. (London: 1936; New York,1941);
Vintage Murder (London: 1937; New York, 1940);
Artists in Crime (London and New York, 1938);
Death in a White Tie. (London and New York, 1938);
Overture to Death (London and New York, 1939);
Death at the Bar (London and Boston 1940);
Death of a Peer (Boston 1940; pub. as Surfeit of Lampreys. London, 1941);
Death and the Dancing Footman (Boston, 1941; London, 1942);
Colour Scheme (London and Boston, 1943);
Died in the Wool (Auckland, 1944; London and Boston, 1945);
Final Curtain (London and Boston, 1947);
A Wreath for Rivera (Boston, 1949; pub. as Swing, Brother, Swing. London: 1949);
Night at the Vulcan (Boston, 1949; pub. as Open Night, London, 1951);
Spinsters in Jeopardy (Boston, 1953; London, 1954; pub. as The Bride of Death, New York, 1955);
Scales of Justice (London and Boston, 1955);
Death of a Fool (Boston, 1956; pub. as Off with His Head London, 1957);
Singing in the Shrouds (Boston, 1958; London, 1959);
False Scent (Boston and London, 1960);
Hand in Glove (Boston and London, 1962);
Dead Water (Boston, 1963; London, 1964);
Killer Dolphin (Boston, 1966; pub. as Death at the Dolphin (London, 1967));
Clutch of Constables (London, 1968; Boston 1969);
When in Rome (London, 1968; Boston 1969);
When in Rome (London, 1970; Boston, 1971);
Tied Up in Tinsel (London, and Boston, 1972);
Black as He’s Painted (London and Boston, 1974);
Last Ditch (Boston and London, 1977);
Grave Mistake (Boston and London, 1978);
Photo Finish (London, and Boston, 1980);
Light Thickens (London and Boston, 1982).
The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh (ed.) Douglas G. Greene, New York, 1989 (This volume contains seven known short stories by Ngaio Marsh, plus other short pieces.)
"The Figure Quoted" (1927); rpt. in (ed.) O.N. Gillespie, New Zealand Short Stories (London and Toronto, 1930), 209-218;
"Moonshine"; in (ed.) Warwick Lawrence, Yours and Mine: Stories by Young New Zealanders (New Plymouth, NZ, 1936), 21-29;
"Murder at Christmas",(The Grand Magazine. December 1934); rpt. as "Death on the Air", Ellery Oueen’s Mystery Magazine January 1948 and in Ellery Oueen’s 1969 Anthology. Vol.16 and Sean Manley and Sogo Lewis, Grand Dames of Detection (New York, 1973), 141-176;
"I Can Find My Way Out", Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. August 1946; rpt. in (ed.) Roy Vickers, Some Like Them Dead (London, 1960), 110-136 and Queen’s Awards 1946 (Boston, 1946);
"Chapter and Verse: The Little Coppestone Mystery", Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 61 (March 1973), 7-25; rpt. in Ellery Queen’s Murdercade (New York, 1975; London, 1976);
"A Fool About Money", Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol.62 (December 1974), 114-118; rpt. in Ellery Queen’s Crime Wave (New York, 1976).
"Morepork"; in (ed.) Julian Symons, Verdict of 13: A Detection Club Anthology (New York, 1978; London, 1979).
New Zealand [with R.M. Burdon] (London, 1942);
A Play Toward: A Note on Play Production (Christchurch, N.Z. 1946).
Play Production [with drawings by S.M. Williams] (Wellington, N.Z. 1948 revised 1960);
Perspectives: The New Zealander and the visual arts (Auckland, N.Z. 1960);
New Zealand: A Nation’s Today Book (New York and London, 1964);
Black Beech and Honeydew (Boston, 1965; London, 1966;
revised ed. Auckland, 1981; London, 1982).
"The Background", The Press (Christchurch, N.Z.) 22 December 1934;
"German Anecdote", pp. 24-27; in Lady Newall’s New Zealand Gift Book (Wellington, N.Z. 1943);
"Dialogue by Way of Introduction" (with Allen Curnow), First Year Book of the Arts in New Zealand (Wellington, N.Z. 1945), 1-8;
"Theatre: A note on the status quo", Landfall 1 (March 1947) 37-43;
"Shakespeare in New Zealand", Education. 1 (1948), 226-230;
"National Theatre", Landfall 3 (March 1949), 66-69;
"The Development of the Arts in New Zealand", Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. Vol. XCIX, No. 4840 (9 February 1951), 246-259;
"A Note on a Production of Twelfth Night", Shakespeare Survey. 8 (1955), 69-73;
"New Zealand, Welfare Paradise", Holiday Magazine 28.5 (November 1960), 102-108;
"The Hand in the Sand"; in (ed.) John Creasey, The Mystery Bedside Book (London, 1960), 191-194;
"When You Take Up Writing You Are On Your Own", New Zealand Herald (Weekend Magazine, Section I), 26 May 1962.
"Shakespeariana’s Lunatic Fringe", The Press. 24 April 1964;
"Stratford-on-Avon", The Atlantic Monthly (February 1967), 116-118;
"Achievement in Fine Arts", The Times. 6 February 1963 (New Zealand Supplement), p. 6;
"The Quick Forge", Landfall 18 (1964), 32-40;
"Early Reading: Dame Ngaio Marsh on A Noah’s Ark Geography", Education. Vol. 26:7 (1977), 25;
"Birth of a Sleuth"; in (ed.) A.S. Burack, Writing Suspense and Mystery Fiction (Boston, 1977), 123-128;
"Roderick Alleyn"; in (ed.) Otto Penzler, The Great Detectives (Boston, 1978), 3-8;
"Entertainments", Pacific Moana Quarterly. Vol. 3:1 (January 1978), 27-31;
"Portrait of Troy"; in (ed.) Dilys Winn, Murderess Ink (New York, 1979), 142-43;
"Women on Women", Landfall 130 (June 1979), 101;
"Remembering John Schroder 1885-1980", Landfall 136 (December 1980), 406-407.
Recordings of radio and television broadcasts by Ngaio Marsh are held in the archives of BBC London, Radio New Zealand and New Zealand Television.
The Christmas Tree (London, (1962) (Juvenile)
"Little Housebound"; produced 1922, New Zealand.
"Exit Sir Derek", (with Henry Jellett); produced 1935, New Zealand.
"Surfeit of Lampreys", Marsh (with Owen B. Howell); produced 1950, UK.
"The Wyvern and Unicorn", produced 1955, New Zealand. This play was the basis for the libretto written by Marsh for the opera "A Unicorn for Christmas", produced 1962, New Zealand.
"False Scent" revised (with Eileen Mackay); produced 1961, UK.
"Sweet Mr. Shakespeare" (with Jonathan Elsom), produced 1976, New Zealand; Norwegian Television 1985 as "Gentle Master Shakespeare".
"Evil Liver"; broadcast 1975, Granada, UK. (Published in The Collected Short Fiction of Ngaio Marsh, (ed.) Douglas G. Greene, New York, 1989.)
Margaret Lewis, Ngaio Marsh: A Life (London, 1991).
Carolyn Lidgard & Carole Acheson (eds.), Return to Black Beech: Papers from a Centenary Symposium on Ngaio Marsh (Christchurch, N.Z., 1996).
Kathryne Slate McDorman, Ngaio Marsh (Boston, 1991)
B.J. Rahn (ed.) Ngaio Marsh: The Woman and Her Work (New Jersey and London 1995).
Carole Acheson, "Cultural Ambivalence: Ngaio Marsh’s New Zealand Detective Fiction", Journal of Popular Culture. Vol. 19:2 (Fall 1985), 159-174;
Earl Bargainnier, "Roderick Alleyn: Ngaio Marsh’s Oxonian
Superintendent", The Armchair Detective 11 (January 1978), 63-71;
Earl Bargainnier "Ngaio Marsh’s ‘Theatrical Murders’, The Armchair Detective 10 (April 1977), 175-81;
Earl F. Bargainnier, "Ngaio Marsh", Ten Women of Mystery (Ohio, 1981), 78-105;
Contemporary Literary Criticism (Michigan, 1989), Vol. 53, 246-260;
A.C. & L.J. Dooley, "Re-reading Ngaio Marsh"; in (ed.) B. Benstock, Art and Crime Writing: Essays on Detective Fiction (1983);
Bruce Harding "In Memoriam: Dame Ngaio Marsh", Landfall 142. (June 1982), 242-245;
Bruce Harding "The New Zealand Stories of Ngaio Marsh", Landfall 144 (December 1982), 447-460;
Bruce Harding, "Wrestling with Caliban: Patterns of Bi-racial Encounter in Colour Scheme and Once Were Warriors". Australia and New Zealand Studies in Canada No.8 (December 1992), 136-155;
Bruce Harding, "‘The Twin Sisters in the Family of Fiction’: Pirandellian Praxis and the Dramatic Narratives of Ngaio Marsh" (Paper presented to Popular Culture Association, 14 April 1995; to be published in Clues: A Journal of Detection);
P.D. James, "On Ngaio Marsh" (Booklet: London, 1995);
Glenda Jones, "Death and the Dame: Ngaio Marsh (1895-1982)", A Shot in the Dark (Brooklyn, 1996), 20-25;
Bruce Mason "In Memoriam: Dame Ngaio Marsh", Landfall 142 (June 1982), 241-242;
Jessica Mann, Deadlier than the Male: An Investigation into Feminine Crime Writing (Newton Abbot and London, 1981), Ch.9;
B.J. Rahn, "Ngaio Marsh: The Detective Novelist of Manners", The Armchair Detective Vol. 28:2 (Spring 1995), 140-147;
B.J. Rahn, "MWA’s 50th - Ngaio Marsh’s 100th", Fiftieth Anniversary Mystery Writers Annual (New York, 1995), 15-16;
B.J. Rain, "Ngaio Marsh’s Dramatic Detective Novels", Mystery Scene No. 47 (May/June 1995), 15 & 55;
Erik Routley, The Puritan Pleasures of the Detective Story (London, 1972), Ch. 13;
Maurice Shadbolt, "Dame Ngaio Marsh: Shakespearian Queen of Crime", Readers’ Digest. Vol. 101 (January 1973), 34-39;
Joan Stevens, "Ngaio Marsh: Artist in Crime", New Zealand Listener. 8 May 1972, 13;
Terry Sturm, "Popular Fiction"; in (ed.) Sturm, The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (Auckland, 1991), 510-514;
Julian Symons, The Detective Story in Britain (London 1962), 31-32;
Ronald Thomas, "Ngaio Marsh: Queen of Detective Cookery", The Mystery Review Vol. 8: No. 2 (Winter 2000), 4-17
Mervyn Thompson, "On the Death of Ngaio Marsh", Landfall 142 (December 1982), 442-446.
Edmund Wilson, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" (1945); rpt. in Classics and Commercials: A Literary Chronicle of the Forties (New York, 1950), 257-265.
The principal source of manuscripts, letters, playtexts and theatrical promptbooks is The Alexander Turnbull Library (National Library of New Zealand, Wellington). Other holdings can be found in the Ngaio Marsh Special Collection at the Canterbury Public Library (Christchurch) and in the Macmillan Brown Library of The University of Canterbury (Christchurch). A significant number of audio-visual materials, holographic manuscripts, first editions, magazines, journals, photographs and letters are being collected and collated at the newly-established (1996) Ngaio Marsh House (37 Valley Road, Cashmere, Christchurch 8002, New Zealand) which is open for tourists (by appointment only) and to serious scholars and researchers (by special arrangement with the Curator). Marsh lived in this house (which the family called "Marton Cottage") from 1906 to 1982 and it has been recreated to resemble the interior and the half-acre garden as at the time of Marsh’s death. It is administered by The Ngaio Marsh House and Heritage Trust. A number of Marsh’s manuscripts are housed in the Special Collections of the Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University. Correspondence of the Marsh’s American agents is now stored in the Harold Ober Associates Archive, Princeton University Libraries (New Jersey). Some photographs are housed in the Harvard Theater Library Collection of Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.). Two organizations have been formed since the Marsh Centenary in 1995: The Friends of Ngaio Marsh, Inc. (1996-) and Ngaio Marsh Society International (1996-). which meets annually at Malice Domestic and which publishes a newsletter. (The Friends can be contacted via The Canterbury Branch, New Zealand Historic Places Trust, P.O. Box 4403, Christchurch, New Zealand and NMSI c/o 103 Godwin Avenue, Midland Park, New Jersey, NJ 07432.)