Helen Clark MacInnes (October 7, 1907 – September 30, 1985)
was a
Scottish-American
Scottish Americans or Scots Americans (Scottish Gaelic language, Scottish Gaelic: ''Ameireaganaich Albannach''; sco, Scots-American) are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Scotland. Scottish people, Scottish Americans are cl ...
writer of
espionage novels.
Life
She and her husband emigrated to the United States in 1937, when he took an academic position at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in New York, while retaining his role in the British
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
, for foreign espionage. MacInnes published her first novel during World War II, and her early novels are all based in that setting. Later she wrote more about characters within the context of the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
.
Early life
Helen Clark MacInnes was born on October 7, 1907 in
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
to Donald MacInnes and Jessica McDiarmid, and had a traditional Scots Presbyterian upbringing. MacInnes graduated from the
University of Glasgow
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, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
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, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
in Scotland in 1928 with an MA in French and German. MacInnes continued her studies at
University College, London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
, where she received a diploma in librarianship in 1931.
[''Encyclopedia Mysteriosa'', by ]William L. DeAndrea
William Louis DeAndrea (July 1, 1952 - October 9, 1996) was an American mystery writer and columnist.
Biography
DeAndrea was born in Port Chester, New York in 1952 and was educated at Syracuse University. During the 1980s his job took him to E ...
; p. 221; published 1994 by Prentice-Hall
Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...
While working as a
librarian
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...
, MacInnes met the
classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
scholar
Gilbert Highet
Gilbert Arthur Highet (; June 22, 1906 – January 20, 1978) was a Scottish American classicist, academic writer, intellectual critic, and literary historian.
Biography
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Gilbert Highet is best known as a mid-20th-centur ...
. The pair married on September 22, 1932, and moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1937.
["Helen (Clark) MacInnes Biography"]
BookRags.com. Retrieved January 24, 2014. The pair had one child,
"MacInnes, Helen (1907–1985)" Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved August 22, 2019. Keith Highet, who was born in 1933 and became an eminent international lawyer.
"Keith Highet (1933-2000)". 94 American Journal of International Law 675. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
Career
In the early 1930s, MacInnes had collaborated with Highet to translate
German literature
German literature () comprises those literature, literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy a ...
, which helped finance their summer travels through Europe. These European excursions gave MacInnes exposure to locations that she used later as settings for her espionage thrillers.
[
MacInnes accepted an appointment as a special cataloguer for the Ferguson Collection at the University of Glasgow. She worked with the Dunbartonshire Education Authority to select books for county libraries. In 1932, Gilbert Highet accepted a classics teaching appointment at ]St John's College, Oxford
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to pro ...
. While in Oxford, MacInnes performed as an amateur actress with the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the Oxford Experimental Theatre.
One of MacInnes’ greatest inspirations in writing on foreign affairs and espionage was her honeymoon to the European mainland, Bavaria in particular. As she and Highet witnessed the oppression of the German totalitarian regime, she swore to write against the oppressive forces of the Nazi government. MacInnes even kept notes about the different governments she saw in her travels with Highet that she would refer back to when she began writing full-time.
Highet served as a British intelligence agent in MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
in addition to working as a classical scholar. Highet continued his work with MI6 after he and MacInnes moved to the U.S. in 1937.[Tom E. Mahl, ''Espionage's Most Wanted''. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc., 2003] That year he accepted an appointment as a professor and chairman of the department of classics (Latin and Greek) at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. When the couple moved there permanently, MacInnes began her writing career. Highet's work in intelligence, in addition to MacInnes's own research and traveling, influenced her writing. MacInnes and Highet produced two books together, translations of German works.
In 1939, the couple's son was taken to hospital with a ruptured appendix. During this episode, Highet came across MacInnes's notes and commentary on Hitler's rise to power, and other matters of contemporary politics. He encouraged her to use them as the basis for a novel.
During the following 45 years, MacInnes wrote 21 espionage thrillers, four of which were later adapted as films. Her early books were set during the Second World War, often featuring lay people who become spies or otherwise caught up in acting on behalf of the Allied war effort. MacInnes became a U.S. citizen in 1952.
MacInnes’ first novel, ''Above Suspicion'', was published in 1941 and remains one of her most famous works. The plot was loosely tied to her travels with Highet and his work in particular with MI6. It follows the journey of newlywed English couple Frances and Richard Myles overseas as they are charged with going “above the suspicion” of the Nazi regime to seek out an undercover spy living in Austria to determine if his position as informant and his information is still valid. It was adapted into a film in 1943 by MGM director Richard Thorpe, and was promoted with the tagline “It happened on a honeymoon,” a parallel between MacInnes and Highet and the Myles couple. MacInnes's second novel, ''Assignment in Brittany
''Assignment in Brittany'' is a 1943 war film directed by Jack Conway and starring French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont and Swedish actress Signe Hasso, both in their American film debuts. Also starring was American actress Susan Peters.
The film w ...
'' (1942), was made required reading for Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
intelligence agents who were being sent to work with the French resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
against the Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
. It was featured on the ''New York Times'' first fiction bestseller list, in 1942. Her 1944 book, ''The Unconquerable'', gives such an accurate portrayal of the Polish resistance that some reviewers and readers thought she was using classified information given to her by her husband.
In her later books, MacInnes shifted her subject matter from World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
to the Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. ''The Venetian Affair,'' for example, was published in 1963, and set in Paris and Venice; it involved Soviet agents and sleeper cells, alluded to events unfolding in Algeria and Vietnam, and contained a conspiracy to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. She continued to produce about one book every two years until her final novel ''Ride a Pale Horse'' (1984).
MacInnes’ career was not dotted with many awards, although she did win the 1966 Iona University Columbia Prize for Literature. This is most directly related to her influence in the state of New York, seeing as her first sixteen novels (those written up to 1966) each spent time on the international best sellers’ list (according to a 1974 People Magazine article).
A review in The New York Times praised MacInnes' body of work for its "unfailing eye for vivid backgrounds, her deft control of complex story lines, and her clear-cut presentation of each important member of her casts. These common qualities have given her work a kind of grandeur, a romantic overtone suggesting knights in mortal combat." Many of MacInnes’ novels are continuing to be renewed for print, cementing her legacy as one of the trailblazing female international affairs novelists in the World War II and Cold War eras.
Her husband Gilbert Highet died in 1978. MacInnes died in New York City on September 30, 1985 at age 77, following a stroke she had suffered three weeks earlier.
MacInnes's writing reflects an affinity for Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler, (, ; ; hu, Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler join ...
and Rebecca West
Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books ...
, as she strongly opposed any form of tyranny
A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to rep ...
and totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
.[
]
Works
*'' Above Suspicion'' (1941), made into a film of the same title
*''Assignment in Brittany'' (1942) made into a film of the same title (though both novel and film are sometimes referred to as '' Cross Channel'', the title of the novel in its serialized form)
*''The Unconquerable'' (1944), also called ''While Still We Live''
*''Horizon'' (1945)
*''Friends and Lovers'' (1947)
*''Rest and Be Thankful'' (1949)
*''Neither Five Nor Three
Neither is an English pronoun, adverb, and determiner signifying the absence of a choice in an either/or
''Either/Or'' ( Danish: ''Enten – Eller'') is the first published work of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Appearing in two vo ...
'' (1951)
*''I and My True Love'' (1953)
*''Pray for a Brave Heart'' (1955)
*''North from Rome'' (1958)
*''Decision at Delphi'' (1960)
*'' The Venetian Affair'' (1963), made into a film of the same title
*''Home Is the Hunter'' (1964), subtitle: A Comedy in Two Acts
*''The Double Image'' (1966)
*''The Salzburg Connection
''The Salzburg Connection'' is a 1972 American thriller film directed by Lee H. Katzin, starring Barry Newman and Anna Karina . It is based on the 1968 novel of the same title by Helen MacInnes. It was filmed in DeLuxe Color and Panavision. The ...
'' (1968), made into a film of the same title
*''Message from Málaga'' (1971)
*''The Snare of the Hunter'' (1974)
*''Agent in Place'' (1976)
*''Prelude to Terror'' (1978)
*''The Hidden Target'' (1980)
*''Cloak of Darkness'' (1982)
*''Ride a Pale Horse'' (1984)
Helen MacInnes' backlist fiction titles have been republished by Titan Books
Titan Publishing Group is the publishing division of Titan Entertainment Group, which was established in 1981. The books division has two main areas of publishing: film and television tie-ins and cinema reference books; and graphic novels and co ...
Translator
*Translated ''Sexual Life in Ancient Rome'', together with Gilbert Highet 1934, from the work of Otto Kiefer, Routledge, 1934.
*Translated ''Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' Gustav Meyer
Gustav Meyer (25 November 1850 – 28 August 1900) was a German linguist and Indo-European scholar, considered to be one of the most important Albanologists of his time, most importantly by proving that the Albanian language belongs to the Indo-Eu ...
, Chapman and Hall, 1934.
Scholarly studies
*Ball, Robert J. "Correspondence of Gilbert Highet and Helen MacInnes with Classical Scholars and Other Individuals." ''Classical World'' 101, no. 4 (2008): 504-532.
*Boyd, Mary K. "The Enduring Appeal of the Spy Thrillers of Helen MacInnes." ''Clues: A Journal of Detection'' 4 (1983): 66-75.
*Carter, Thomas D. ''Enemies Within and Without: Foreign and Domestic Affairs in the Spy Thriller Novels of Helen MacInnes, Dorothy Gilman, and Robert Ludlum, 1940-1990.'' PhD diss., Middle Tennessee State University, 2003.
*Lassner, Phyllis. "Double Trouble: Helen MacInnes’s and Agatha Christie’s Speculative Spy Thrillers." In ''The History of British Women’s Writing, 1945–1975'', pp. 227–241. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017.
*Lassner, Phyllis. ''Espionage and Exile: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Spy Fiction and Film''. Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
*Lassner, Phyllis. "Under Suspicion: The Plotting of Britain in World War II Detective Spy Fiction." ''Intermodernism: Literary Culture in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain'' (2011): 113-130.
*Matthews, Nicole. "Reading and the visual dimensions of the book: The popular Cold War Fictions of Helen Macinnes." In ''Reading in History: New methodologies from the Anglo-American tradition'', pp. 63–76. Taylor & Francis, 2010.
*''Publishers Weekly'' editors. "Helen MacInnes". ''The Author Speaks,'' 512-413. New York: R.R. Bowker.
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macinnes, Helen Clark
1907 births
1985 deaths
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Alumni of University College London
American librarians
American women librarians
American women novelists
Writers from Glasgow
Scottish librarians
Scottish women novelists
British emigrants to the United States
20th-century American novelists
Scottish novelists
20th-century American women writers
British women librarians