18 Facts About Margery Allingham

Margery Louise Allingham was an English novelist from the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", and considered one of its four "Queens of Crime", alongside Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh.

Margery Louise Allingham was born on 20 May 1904 in Ealing, London, the eldest daughter of Herbert John and Emily Jane.

Margery Allingham had a younger brother Philip William, and a younger sister Emily Joyce Allingham.

Margery Allingham's family was immersed in literature; her parents were both writers.

Margery Allingham attended a local school and then the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, all the while writing stories and plays.

Margery Allingham earned her first fee at the age of eight, for a story printed in her aunt's magazine.

Margery Allingham collaborated with her and designed the jackets for many of her books.

Margery Allingham played the role of Dido and the scenery was designed by Philip Youngman Carter.

Nevertheless, Margery Allingham continued to include occult themes in many of her novels.

Margery Allingham wrote several plays in this period and attempted to write a serious novel, but finding that her themes clashed with her natural light-heartedness, she decided instead to try the mystery genre.

Margery Allingham's breakthrough occurred in 1929 with the publication of The Crime at Black Dudley.

Campion proved so successful that Margery Allingham made him the centrepiece of another 17 novels and more than 20 short stories, continuing into the 1960s.

The first three Campion novels, The Crime at Black Dudley, Mystery Mile and Look to the Lady, were all written by what Margery Allingham referred to as the "plum pudding" method, focused less on methods of murder or the formal strictures of the whodunit and more on mixing possibilities together.

Margery Allingham falls in love, gets married and has a child, and as time goes by he grows in wisdom and matures emotionally.

In 1941 Margery Allingham published a non-fiction work, The Oaken Heart, which describes her experiences in Essex when an invasion from Germany was expected and actively being planned for, potentially placing the civilian population of Essex in the front line.

Margery Allingham suffered from breast cancer and died at Severalls Hospital, Colchester, England, on 30 June 1966, aged 62.

The Margery Allingham Omnibus, comprising Sweet Danger, The Case of the Late Pig and The Tiger in the Smoke, with a critical introduction by Jane Stevenson, was published in 2006.

Margery Allingham was buried in the newer cemetery in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, which is across the road from the graveyard of St Nicholas's Church and about half a mile to the south.