Helen McCloy

Helen Worrell Clarkson McCloy ( born June 6, 1904 in New York; † 1994) was an American journalist, literary critic, publisher and mystery writer who wrote under the pseudonym Helen Clarkson.

Life

Helen McCloy was the daughter of William Conrad McCloy - long time editor of the New York Evening Sun - and the writer Helen Worrell McCloy (birth name Clarkson ). Your school days spent Helen McCloy on founded by Quakers in 1867 the Brooklyn Friends School. In 1923 she went to France, where he studied until 1924 at the Sorbonne in Paris. Between 1927 and 1932 she worked as a correspondent in France News Bureau Hearst 's Universal News Service of the American publisher William Randolph Hearst, as an art critic for The International Studio and other magazines and as a freelancer for the conservative London newspaper the Morning Post. Upon her return to the United States (1932 ) McCloy began her literary work. The first big success she succeeded in 1938 with the novel Dance of Death and her series protagonist Dr. Basil Willing.

1946 married Helen McCloy the mystery writer Davis Dresser, who was known under the pseudonym Brett Halliday with his Mike Shayne series in Germany. McCloy Dresser and had a daughter named Chloe. Together they founded the literary agency Halliday and McCloy and Torquil Publishing Company, in which the novels of Brett Halliday and other writers published from 1953 to 1965. In the fifties and sixties McCloy wrote moonlighting as a reviewer for several newspapers in Connecticut. Her marriage to Davis Dresser fell apart in 1961.

Helen McCloy was the first woman who in 1950 was elected president of the American Writers Association Mystery Writers of America ( MWA). She supported the 1971 establishment of the MWA - section New England ( Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Iceland and Vermont ) of the Writers' Union. To date (2013 ) Helen McCloy / MWA Scholarship for Mystery Writing, are promoted in the writer talents in various fields exists.

Awards

In addition, several works by Helen McCloy found the highest recognition in the international leaderboards. Thus we find "Do Not Disturb " from 1943 as top titles in the popular American Anthony Boucher 's List of Best title from 1930 to 1967.

The well-known British literary critic and writer HRF Keating immortalized Helen McCloy with "Mr. Split Foot " as best novel for the year 1968 in its list of the 100 best crime novels of 1845 until 1986.

In The Mystery Lover 's Companion takes the literary critic Art Bourgeau McCloy "Cue for Murder " from 1942 with the highest number of five Daggern on. Bourgeau rated about 2,500 books from the years 1860-1985, of which 226 titles received this highest award and were classified by him as A True Classic.

William F. Deeck (1936-2004), a well-known in the U.S. critic, reviewer and namesake of the literary prize William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers, the countless articles for The Armchair Detective, Mystery Readers Journal, and other publications wrote, took into account McCloy also in his leaderboard My One Hundred Best Mystery Books. With " Through a Glass, Darkly " he took them for 1950 in its list.

The Opened in 1957 by New York Publisher Dell Publishing series The Dell Great Mystery Library acquired the best crime novels 1902-1962. McCloy was there with " Before I Die " best crime writer for the year 1963.

Ellery Queen's Queen's Quorum listed as best short story McCloy's " Surprise, Surprise! " ( Original: The Singing Diamonds) for the year 1965.

Helen McCloy

Life

Awards

Works

Dr. Basil Willing series

Other

Helen McCloy as Helen Clarkson

Short stories

Anthologies, as Issuer

Anthologies of stories by Helen McCloy

Collections

Film

Further Reading