Dame Ngaio Marsh

Following her death in 1982, Ngaio Marsh bequeathed works to the University of Canterbury.  Some 200 works were selected by Librarian (Dick Hlavac) and Head of Acquisitions (R. Stevens). Chronicle' v17 #16 1982. This material was from her personal library and contains samples from the likes of Folio Press and other fine-print presses.

The works from the Marsh bequest, that are held in the Macmillan Brown Library, have both a UC bookplate with the University Crest and texting reading “UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY LIBRARY PRESENTED BY DAME NGAIO MARSH BEQUEST” and the Ex Libris Marsh bookplate with the motto “Virtus Nobilitat’. This material was from her personal library containing many beautiful, ornate works from the likes of Folio Press and other fine-print presses.

Items of note from the Marsh collection is a copy of Compositions from the tragedies of Aeschylus by John Flaxman (1831) and a manuscript work, Sketches from Salvator Rosa by John Smith (1776).

Related items

Ex Libris Marsh

Ngaio Marsh Bequest / Rosa

Francis Palmer

A sample of Marsh items at the Macmillan Brown Library

• The last chronicle of Barset
• Brief lives : a selection based upon existing contemporary portraits
• Mansfield Park
• St Mark's gospel : a new translation from the Greek
• Boxwood & graver : a miscellany of blocks
• Jane Eyre
• Wuthering Heights
• The moonstone : a romance
• Tales of suspense
• Confessions of an English opium eater
• The brothers Karamazov
• Four quartets
• Howards End
• Mademoiselle de Maupin
• The history of the kings of Britain
• The great enterprise : the history of the Spanish Armada, as revealed in contemporary documents
• Compendium maleficarum : showing the iniquitous and execrable operations of witches against the human race, and the divine remedies by which they may be fustrated
• Private Angelo
• Hero and Leander
• The history of the Chevalier des Grieux and of Manon Lescaut
• The comedy of As you like it
• Romeo and Juliet
• Songs from the plays of Shakespeare
• Barchester towers
• Doctor Thorne
• Mary Gresley and other stories
• The parson's daughter : and other stories
• Vincent Crummles, his theatre and his times : with an historical introductory note and appendices from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
• The duchess of Malfi
• Phantastes : a faerie romance
• A collection of the most esteemed farces and entertainments performed on the British stage
• Compositions from the tragedies of Aeschylus
• The history of the Chevalier des Grieux and of Manon Lescaut
• Sketches from Salvator Rosa
• Les diners de M. Guillaume : suivis de l'Avanture de son enterrement.

Further resources

Jane Stafford. 'Marsh, Edith Ngaio', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1998. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4m42/marsh-edith-ngaio (accessed 31 March 2022)

Read NZ 'Marsh, Ngaio', https://www.read-nz.org/writer/marsh-ngaio/ (accessed 31 March 2022)