Talk:Ngaio Marsh

'Gentleman' Alleyn

He isn't. He rises in the ranks of the CID, up to Chief Super.

Pronunciation

The pronunciation of her name can be found at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kschwart/death/er_new.html -- Zoe

The above link did not work (from the UK anyway) in November 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piers1943 (talk • contribs) 11:06, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The wav file is pretty accurate (given that it has a Canadian(?) accent).

The New Zealander who claimed it was Nay-oh is talking rubbish. Although I am too young to have worked with her, many of my theatrical colleagues in Christchurch knew her intimately. -- Dramatic

I've removed the unsupported assertion that her work has the most characterization of any of the so-called Queens of Crime. It really isn't true -- that is more a characteristic of Sayers' work, if anybody's -- and it isn't supported by reference to an authority. Accounting4Taste 22:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Lead section

I recommend expanding the lead section, per WP:LEAD, so it comprises a brief summary of the article. --Elonka 23:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Today I put Roderick Alleyn in the lead, based on discussion below, #Template: Ngaio Marsh. And I put the Queens of Crime in the lead, essentially relying on our articles Gentleman detective and Detective fiction or Golden Age.

I relegated the bit about her long-unreported and now-uncertain birth date to section one, Early life. That section needs expansion because it says nothing about her childhood and teenage is lacking *and* it is so short that the left image does not adequately fit before the next heading.

... continued below, #Bibliography --P64 (talk) 20:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Bride of Death

Resolved

I've never seen an edition of "Spinsters in Jeopardy" that's titled "Bride of Death", although to be sure that does sound like a reasonable title for this novel. Can someone provide a citation? Accounting4Taste:talk 18:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Found one. There were two US editions, the first (Boston, 1953) as Spinsters, the 2nd (New York, 1955). Given that US publication was often a year earlier, I might redo that list as a table when I get time. dramatic (talk) 23:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks for promptly providing this (see what happens when you lend your copy of Hubin? LOL) Accounting4Taste:talk 00:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Template: Ngaio Marsh

I suspect that template {{Ngaio Marsh}} should either be renamed for Roderick Alleyn and listed under 'A' in its categories, or it should be expanded to cover more than Alleyn, and be listed under 'M' with author templates.

(I have never heard of either one and have no clue whether Alleyn or Marsh is more famous, which direction the navbox is more likely to merit expansion. This is just something i noticed while fixing author templates that are mistakenly under book series.) --P64 (talk) 19:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I don't think either Marsh or Alleyn is "more famous"—they're almost always considered in tandem. I rarely mess with templates except to fix obvious errors, but I'll offer a couple of thoughts.

First, it looks like the template is roughly analogous to Template:Agatha Christie. The latter is divided into categories; this could also be done with Marsh's template, although Marsh only has one detective-protagonist and the Novels category would comprise nearly all of the content.

Thanks for the prompt reply.

There is some analogy but {{Hercule Poirot}} is currently closer in contents while {{Agatha Christie}} is closer in name only. Perhaps the question is not fame but whether Marsh is likely to have any non-Alleyn articles except the biography.

Based on a quick glance I think Alleyn might have beside the novels articles: Roderick Alleyn, some list that doesn't yet exist, The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries, and Death on the Air and Other Stories or some particular short stories and essays. -P64

How important are these templates, anyway? Some of Marsh's other peers, including Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham, don't appear to have templates. The only disadvantage I can see to this is that the articles on each of their books don't contain handy links to all of their other books. That seems like a minor inconvenience, since the author articles with their complete bibliographies are just one click away, but I can't be sure. Rivertorch (talk) 20:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Ouch. I don't know how many readers use these navigational boxes [1a] ({{Agatha Christie}} and [1b] {{Hercule Poirot}}, or any other navigational tools such as [2] categories, [3] succession boxes, and [4] "preceded_by" and "followed_by" within Infobox book.

Not knowing, perhaps I should spend less time :-(

--P64 (talk) 21:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Not at all. If you enjoy doing it and it might be helpful to some users, then I'm sure it's worth your time. I was just sort of wondering aloud. In this case, I'll just say "meh". If you decide to expand it as an author template or convert it to a character template, either way, I'll be happy to check it over. (I don't know from templates but I'm tolerably conversant with the works of Ngaio Marsh.) Rivertorch (talk) 05:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I have expanded that template in the Alleyn direction, an easy choice to make at this point because there are no other Marsh-related articles at Wikipedia (as far as I know, except she wrote one episode for Crown Court).

I have summarized the situation at Category talk: New Zealand writers templates and Template talk: Ngaio Marsh.

I won't rename without reading WP:TEMPLATE and won't read that for a few days at least. --P64 (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

(A few days later.) I have moved/renamed the template, now {{Roderick Alleyn}}. I have also re-organized it by reference to the much grander templates {{Miss Marple}} and {{Hercule Poirot}}. In particular see the display title and layout with sections Creator and See also.

Probably every Alleyn article links Ngaio Marsh in its lead. That is not true of the links that remain under heading "See also". I now understand that one main purpose of these templates --which are familiar to some readers as well as editors-- is to provide at once in every article on one of the books both [a] overview of current wikipedia coverage and [b] convenient "See also" links. --P64 (talk) 23:26, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. (interrupted yesterday) --P64 (talk) 20:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

wretched snob

Surely many many critics, even in the 1920s and 30s, noted Marsh's snobbery? If so, I think it's important enough to be mentioned in the article, because it will leap out at a reader of her books(and the reader will wonder why it's not noted here too).-Richard Peterson216.86.177.36 (talk) 23:15, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't know. Did critics note her snobbery? Having read all of her books, some multiple times, I have to say that it hasn't exactly leapt out at me. Classism yes, homophobia yes, snobbery not especially—but it's a bit of a vague term. If you know that critics (or other notable authors or academics) have noted snobbery in the writings of Marsh, you're free to add that information to the article. Please be sure to cite reliable sources and avoid original research. Rivertorch (talk) 05:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I think what you call classism is what I call snobbery. Apparently you use extremely precise terms.216.86.177.36 (talk) 21:20, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Whatever it is being called, the above suggestion is sound. Find reliable sources and add it to the article. If you can't find sources, don't add it. Schwede66 21:38, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Right. Also, it's important not to get an author's own traits or opinions muddled up with those of her characters. Rivertorch (talk) 00:23, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

"Gentleman detective" mentions gentlemen by conduct and the gentry --who must be distinguished from the nobility. ... [This concerns Alleyn rather than Marsh so make this a new section -P64 2012-05-31]

There was a certain amount of snobbery in Christie-the servant rarely did the murder. Slightnostalgia (talk) 14:45, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Not just 'snob' but 'wretched snob'? Really? Not remotely in the same league as the hugely overrated Allingham (and even more overrated Christie).

Gentleman detectives and their authors

"Gentleman detective" (which i have added to #Template: Ngaio Marsh) mentions gentlemen by conduct and the gentry --who must be distinguished from the nobility.

That article covers the status or class-ism or snobbery, etc, of the detectives --recurrently and rather well, altho not every aspect systematically. Including this (2):

• "Alleyn is a thoroughly professional policeman, but socially is very like Wimsey. ... [two paragraphs] Wimsey deliberately cultivates his aristocratic eccentricities (inter alia, he wears a monocle, delights in his Oxford accent, and collects incunabula), whereas Alleyn is not at all eccentric, and plays down his upper class background."
• "Morse works in Oxford and is (or was) upwardly mobile: he apparently won a scholarship to Oxford ... [two sentences] Morse's snobbery is intellectual rather than a question of breeding or social advantage."

There is no status/class/snob talk about Marsh but this tidbit suggests that her collected "stories" may be a useful source on related points and perhaps that one.

• "In an essay by one of her Golden Age rivals, Ngaio Marsh (see below), [Dorothy] Sayers is accused of having 'fallen in love' with [Lord Peter] Wimsey."

Greene, Douglas G. (editor) (1995). Alleyn and others: the collected short fiction of Ngaio Marsh. International Polygonics. ISBN 1-55882-028-0 (hardcover 1989, edition) isbn 158820507. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

--P64 (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Except he isn't. He is a CID career officer.

Bibliography

The {{bare URL}} should be replaced by a complete ref to that "Selected Bibliography"[1]. The one in the article is shorter and, regardless whether it is expanded, its select nature should be clarified. Eg, which sections are complete (novels, i think)? --P64 (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Afterthoughts that came during coffee break:

• All her novels were detective novels, all featuring Alleyn? Select bibliography should indicate the truth of the matter.

• Evidently Alleyn should be mentioned in the lead. (#Lead section)

• Those two "biographical essays" in the collection Death on the Air ...: I suppose they are fiction "essays" because non-narrative? Somewhere else I recently called such matter "fictional reference", off the top of my head, and experienced one catalogue. ... (Earthsea#Short stories) Quote for permanent ref here: Tales from Earthsea also includes about thirty pages of fictional reference material titled "A Description of Earthsea" (2001) and catalogued as short fiction by ISFDB.[5] --In that catalogue "short story" is one class of short fiction defined simply by word count.]

--P64 (talk) 19:57, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

This hour I have revised the biography in several respects that the edit summary adequately indicates. For her {{infobox writer}} I used Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers as guides; don't know why Agatha gets "Golden Age of Detective Fiction" on one line :-(

Please check for accuracy the prefaces I have provided for "Bibliography" subsections, and my corresponding rearrangement of the Alleyn material, labeling two non-stories original. I made some guesses in order to take a useful first step on the way that I suggested above last week. --P64 (talk) 20:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Award section

The Award section, which I've just removed from the article, has been problematic since its inception because its sourcing is less than optimal. I don't doubt the author of the blog is competent and knowledgeable, but if we can't do better than a blog, then it really doesn't belong in Wikipedia. Noteworthiness is an issue, as well as reliability; a quick search fails to turn up any useful information on the Dame Ngaio Marsh Trust itself.

Unfortunately, the section has also become a venue for listing the award's recipients (and finalists, no less), and this is beyond the proper scope of the article because its relation to Ngaio Marsh is entirely peripheral (and the wording inappropriate, fwiw).

I do think the existence of the award might be mentioned if we could come up with a better source. In the meantime, the content I've removed is below, for easy reference:

Content of section removed from article
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Award In 2010 the Dame Ngaio Marsh Trust created the Best Crime Novel Award, to be given annually. In its inaugural year, the three finalists were Neil Cross Captured ; Vanda Symon Containment; and Alix Bosco (pseudonym), Cut and Run. Alix Bosco won the inaugural award.<ref>[http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/inaugural-ngaio-marsh-award-winner.html Inaugural Marsh award winner]</ref> In 2011, fellow Ngaio Marsh hometown writer, Paul Cleave beat out stiff competition from Neil Cross, Paddy Richardson and Greg McKee (aka Alix Bosco) to take the award for his novel, Blood Men. In 2012, a delighted Neil Cross accepted the award for his book, Luther: The Calling which is a novel that predates the events in Luther the television series. The other three finalists were, Vanda Symon, Ben Sanders and Paul Cleave.

Rivertorch (talk) 10:04, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

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Trousers

Dame Ngaio Marsh did not wear trousers. She wore slacks, which are not the same at all. To call them trousers implies a masculinity which is misleading.Royalcourtier (talk) 00:47, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the sentence you objected to, which spoke of trousers and deep voice, implied masculinity. I don't know whether that was misleading but it certainly seemed trivial. It also (rather ridiculously, I thought) juxtaposed Marsh's denial of being gay with the said trousers and voice. On a more technical note, the sentence also was an uncomfortably close paraphrase. I have removed it and revised the paragraph. Rivertorch's Evil Twin (talk) 19:01, 25 June 2016 (UTC)