J. I. M. Stewart | |
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Born | John Innes Mackintosh Stewart 30 September 1906 Edinburgh |
Died | 12 November 1994 Coulsdon, London |
(aged 88)
Pen name | Michael Innes |
Occupation | Professor of English |
Language | English |
Nationality | Scottish |
Alma mater | Oriel College, Oxford |
Period | 1936 - 1987 |
Genre | Mysteries, Literary criticism |
Spouse | Margaret Hardwick (1932-1979) |
Children | 5 including Angus John Mackintosh Stewart |
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John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (30 September 1906 – 12 November 1994) was a Scottish novelist and academic. He is equally well known for the works of literary criticism and contemporary novels published under his real name and for the crime fiction published under the pseudonym of Michael Innes. Many devotees of the Innes books were unaware of his other "identity", and vice versa.
Stewart was born in Edinburgh, the son of Elizabeth Jane (née Clark) and John Stewart of Nairn. His father was a lawyer and Director of Education in the city of Edinburgh. Stewart attended Edinburgh Academy, where Robert Louis Stevenson had been a pupil for a short time, and later studied English literature at Oriel College, Oxford. It was here he was presented with the Matthew Arnold Memorial Prize and was named a Bishop Frazer's scholar. In 1929 he went to Vienna to study psychoanalysis. He was lecturer in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 to 1935 and then became Jury Professor of English in the University of Adelaide, South Australia.
He returned to the United Kingdom to become Lecturer in English at the Queen's University of Belfast from 1946 to 1948. In 1949 he became a Student (equivalent of Fellow in other Oxford colleges) of Christ Church, Oxford. By the time of his retirement in 1973, he was a professor of the university. He died at Coulsdon.
Stewart wrote several critical studies, including full-length studies of James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Hardy, as well as many novels and short stories. His last publication was his autobiography Myself and Michael Innes (1987).