Helen MacInnes

Helen Clark MacInnes (October 7, 1907 – September 20, 1985) was a Scottish-American author of espionage novels.

Helen Clark MacInnes was born on October 7, 1907 in Glasgow to Donald MacInnes and Jessica McDiarmid. She was reared in a traditional Scots Presbyterian upbringing. Helen Clark MacInnes graduated from the University of Glasgow in Scotland in 1928 with a degree in French and German. After her M.A. in 1928, MacInnes continued her studies at University College, London, where she received a diploma in librarianship in 1931.

While working as a librarian, MacInnes met and married the classics scholar Gilbert Highet on September 22, 1932, and they moved to New York City in 1937.

In the 1930s, MacInnes collaborated with Highet to translate German literature, which helped finance their summer travels through Europe. These European excursions gave MacInnes the exposure to the locations which would become the exotic settings of her espionage thrillers in later years.

MacInnes accepted an appointment as a special cataloger for the Ferguson Collection at the University of Glasgow. She also helped 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 and while in Oxford, MacInnes served as an amateur actress with the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the Oxford Experimental Theatre.

Gilbert Highet served as an MI6 British intelligence agent, in addition to working as a classics scholar. Obviously, her husband's work in intelligence became a significant influence on the subject matter of MacInnes's novels. (Apparently Highet continued his work with MI6 even after moving to the U.S. in 1937.) Highet accepted appointment as a professor and chairman of the department of classics (Latin and Greek) at Columbia University in New York City in 1937. During the following 45 years, MacInnes wrote 21 espionage thrillers, four of which were later made into movies. MacInnes became a U.S. citizen in 1952.

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