Pictured here is internationally acclaimed author and director Dame Ngaio Marsh’s probate file, which includes a copy of the final will she made in 1981. The cover of the document is embellished with a hand-stitched frame of bright red wool, which seems a suitably dramatic choice, befitting of New Zealand’s very own ‘Queen of Crime’.

The 1920s and 1930s are considered the Golden Age of the crime fiction genre, and Ngaio Marsh, born in Christchurch in 1895, was one of four female writers in the international vanguard - a ‘Queen of Crime’, alongside Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, and of course, Agatha Christie. Marsh was a prolific writer, producing over 30 mystery novels centred around Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard, many of which were later adapted for television and radio in New Zealand and Great Britain, and which achieved book sales amounting to over two million copies worldwide.

Marsh’s novels, in contrast with those of many of her contemporaries in the genre, have a deftness of touch in language and characterisation - doubtless engendered by her rich artistic background, for in addition to her literary gifts she was also a talented painter, theatre actress, director and producer - with a particular penchant for Shakespeare.

Marsh divided her time between New Zealand and England, finally passing away at her beloved home in Cashmere, Christchurch on 18 February, 1982. A striking and colourful figure in life, and phenomenally successful by any measure, it seems remarkable that following her death, Marsh’s cultural legacy seems to have been largely overlooked in New Zealand until recent years, which have seen a biography published, and her house converted into a memorial museum.

Archives New Zealand’s Christchurch Regional Office holds a wealth of historical material relating to the Canterbury and Westland areas, and this probate file can be viewed in person in our Christchurch Reading Room. Probate files held by Archives New Zealand’s four offices are currently being digitised as part of a joint project between Archives New Zealand and Family Search. All probate files over 50 years old are being made available online, free of charge, for searching, viewing, and printing, via the Family Search website. In the Christchurch Office this process is complete, and all of our probate files up to the end of 1964, have been digitised, indexed, and made available on Family Search: familysearch.org.