Helen Simpson(1897-1940)
- Writer
Writer Helen Simpson was born Helen De Guerry Simpson in Sydney, Australia, in 1897. Her father was a solicitor and her mother the daughter of a member of the French nobility. When she was a child her parents separated; her mother moved to London, England, and her father sent her to a Catholic convent boarding school. In 1914 she traveled to England to join her mother and attended Oxford in 1915. In 1918 she joined the Womens Royal Naval Service, posted to the decoding section of the Admiralty, and returned to Oxford the next year. She studied music, intending to become a composer, but became interested in the theatre; she wrote several plays and founded the Oxford Women's Dramatic Society. She ran afoul of the college authorities, however, who had strict regulations about male and female students acting together, and left Oxford in 1921 without finishing her degree.
In 1921 she returned to Sydney to attend her brother's wedding. There she published "Philosophies in Little", a collection of verse she had written. Two years later she wrote a play, "A Man of His TIme", based on the life of famed Italian artist Benvenuto Cellini, which was published in a "Sydney Daily Telegraph" literary contest, and was performed in Sydney the next year. She returned to Oxford in 1924. She bet someone that she could write a novel in five weeks and, as it turned out, she did--"Acquittal", a detective thriller published in London in 1925. It was a hit, and she turned out several more novels and plays in quick succession.
In 1927 she returned to Australia, and there married Denis Browne, a pediatric surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children. They had a daughter, Clemence (named after her close friend, writer Clemence Dane). She was a prolific writer, turning out a slew of detective novels over the next few years (three of them in collaboration with Dane). She also wrote novels about the history of Australia and a biography of King Henry VIII.
In the 1930s she gave a series of lectures and broadcasts on literary history. She toured the US in 1938, but by that time her eyesight was failing and she cut back on her writing. She turned to politics and in 1938 was the Liberal candidate for Parliament for the Isle of Wight.
She died in Overbury, near Evesham, Worcestershire, In October of 1940, from injuries she received in an air raid. She was survived by her husband and daughter.
In 1921 she returned to Sydney to attend her brother's wedding. There she published "Philosophies in Little", a collection of verse she had written. Two years later she wrote a play, "A Man of His TIme", based on the life of famed Italian artist Benvenuto Cellini, which was published in a "Sydney Daily Telegraph" literary contest, and was performed in Sydney the next year. She returned to Oxford in 1924. She bet someone that she could write a novel in five weeks and, as it turned out, she did--"Acquittal", a detective thriller published in London in 1925. It was a hit, and she turned out several more novels and plays in quick succession.
In 1927 she returned to Australia, and there married Denis Browne, a pediatric surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children. They had a daughter, Clemence (named after her close friend, writer Clemence Dane). She was a prolific writer, turning out a slew of detective novels over the next few years (three of them in collaboration with Dane). She also wrote novels about the history of Australia and a biography of King Henry VIII.
In the 1930s she gave a series of lectures and broadcasts on literary history. She toured the US in 1938, but by that time her eyesight was failing and she cut back on her writing. She turned to politics and in 1938 was the Liberal candidate for Parliament for the Isle of Wight.
She died in Overbury, near Evesham, Worcestershire, In October of 1940, from injuries she received in an air raid. She was survived by her husband and daughter.
