Helen McCloy

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

Life

Helen McCloy was the daughter of William Conrad McCloy - longtime editor of the New York Evening Sun - and the writer Helen Worrell McCloy (maiden name Clarkson) . Helen McCloy spent her school days at the Brooklyn Friends School in New York, founded by Quakers in 1867  . In 1923 she went to France, where she studied at the Paris Sorbonne until 1924 . Between 1927 and 1932 she worked as France - correspondent in 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 Morning Post . Upon her return to the United States (1932) McCloy began her writing. Her first major success came in 1938 with the novel Dance of Death and her series protagonist Dr. Basil Willing .

In 1946, Helen McCloy married the crime writer Davis Dresser , who also became known in Germany under the pseudonym Brett Halliday with his Mike Shayne series. McCloy and Dresser had a daughter named Chloe . Together they founded the Halliday and McCloy literary agency and the Torquil Publishing Company , which published the novels of Brett Halliday and other writers from 1953 to 1965. During the 1950s and 1960s, McCloy was a part-time reviewer for various Connecticut newspapers . Her marriage to Davis Dresser fell apart in 1961.

Helen McCloy was the first woman to be elected president of the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) association in 1950 . In 1971 she helped found the New England ( Maine , Massachusetts , New Hampshire , Rhode Island and Vermont ) MWA section of the Writers' Union. The Helen McCloy / MWA Scholarship for Mystery Writing exists to this day (2013), promoting talented writers in various fields.

Awards

• 1954 Edgar Allan Poe Award - Best Literary Review Category for her reviews in Westport Town Crier and other Connecticut newspapers (with Brett Halliday)
• 1980 Nero Wolfe Award - Best Novel category for Burn This
• 1990 Grand Master Award , the highest award of the Mystery Writers of America (MWA) in recognition of the special achievements in the crime genre and the consistently high quality of their works

In addition, several works by Helen McCloy received the highest recognition in international best lists. For example, “Do Not Disturb” from 1943 is the top title in the popular American Anthony Boucher's List of Best Titles 1930–1967 .

The well-known British literary critic and writer HRF Keating immortalized Helen McCloy with “Mr. Splitfoot ” as the best novel of 1968 in its listing of the 100 best crime novels from 1845 to 1986.

In The Mystery Lover's Companion , literary critic Art Bourgeau recorded McCloys “Cue for Murder” from 1942 with the highest number of five Daggers. 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 US critic, reviewer, and namesake of the William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers , who wrote countless articles for The Armchair Detective, Mystery Readers Journal, and other publications, considered McCloy is also on his list of the best My One Hundred Best Mystery Books . With "Through a Glass, Darkly" he added her to his list for 1950.

The series The Dell Great Mystery Library , opened in 1957 by the New York publisher Dell Publishing , recorded the best crime novels between 1902 and 1962. McCloy was named best crime writer for 1963 with “Before I Die” .

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

Works

Dr. Basil Willing series

• 1938 Dance of Death (UK: Design for Dying)
• 1940 The Man in the Moonlight
• 1941 The Deadly Truth (German lie, if you can . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1969)
• 1942 Who's Calling?
• 1942 Cue for Murder
• 1943 The Goblin Market
• 1945 The One That Got Away
• 1948 Through a Glass, Darkly
• 1951 aka Basil Willing
• 1955 The Long Body (Eng. It began in Mexico . Scherz, Bern et al. 1960)
• 1956 Two-Thirds of a Ghost (German three in a coffin . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1963)
• 1968 Mr. Splitfoot
• 1980 Burn This

Others

• 1943 Do Not Disturb
• 1944 panic
• 1948 She Walks Alone (Eng. She walked alone . Nest, Nuremberg 1952)
• 1949 Better Off Dead
• 1954 Unfinished Crime (dt. The other career . Scherz, Bern, among others, 1961)
• 1957 The Slayer and the Slain
• 1963 Before I Die
• 1967 The Further Side of Fear
• 1971 A Question of Time (Eng. Das Bild des Schreckens . Heyne, Munich 1973)
• 1973 A Change of Heart
• 1974 The Sleepwalker
• 1975 Minotaur Country
• 1976 The Changeling Conspiracy (UK: Cruel as the Grave )
• 1977 The Impostor
• 1979 The Smoking Mirror

Helen McCloy as Helen Clarkson

• 1959 The Last Day

Short stories

• 1941 The Nameless Clue. In: Five-Novels Monthly. 1941
• 1946 chinoiserie. In: EQMM. July 1946
• 1949 The Case of the Duplicate Door . In: Mystery Puzzle of the Month. 1949
• 1949 The Singing Diamonds . In: EQMM. October 1949
• 1951 Murder is Everybody's Business. In: EQMM. February 1953
• 1955 Thy Brother Death . In: This Week. 1955
• 1957 The Murder Stops the Music . In: (Minneapolis) Star Tribune January 27, 1957
• 1964 Murder Ad Lib . In: EQMM. November 1964
• 1970 The Pleasant Assassin . In: EQMM. December 1970
• 1978 A Case of Innocent Eavesdropping . In: EQMM. March 1978
• 1979 Murphy's Law . In: EQMM. May 1979
• 1979 That Bug That's Going Around . In: EQMM. August 1979

EQMM = Ellery Queen (Ed.): Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine .

Anthologies as editor

• 1951 20 Great Tales of Murder (with Brett Halliday)

Anthologies with stories by Helen McCloy

• 1946 Murder Cavalcade: An Anthology . Editors: Lockridge, Richard; August William Derleth ; Mystery Writers of America
• 1969 Alfred Hitchcock Presents: A Month of Mystery . Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
• 1989 Tales of the Occult . Editor: Isaac Asimov ; Martin Harry Greenberg ; Waugh, Charles et al

Collections

• 1965 The Singing Diamonds and Other Stories (UK: Surprise, Surprise)
• 2003 The Pleasant Assassin and Other Cases of Dr. Basil Willing (short stories with Basil Willing)

Movie

• 1957: The Other Side of the Curtain . American TV adaptation by Revue Studios from the series Suspicion . Directed by James Neilson . Starring: Donna Reed , Jeff Richards, Herbert Anderson , Harold J. Stone and Ainslie Pryor.
• 1959: Through a Glass, Darkly . English TV adaptation of the BBC from the series Saturday Playhouse , adapted by John Hopkins . Leading actors: Andrew Osborn, Diane Clare, Julia Arnall and Joyce Heron.
• 1989: Cue for Murder . French TV adaptation of France 3 from the series Le masque under the title En scène pour la mort . Director: Pascal Goethals. Leading actors: François Perrot, Roger Dumas and Françoise Viau.

further reading

• Jay P. Pedersen (Ed.): St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers . St. James Press, Detroit 2006. (English)
• Robert Allen Papinchak: Woman of Mystery. In: Robin W. Winks (Ed.): Mystery and Suspense Writers: The Literature of Crime, Detection, and Espionage . Scribner's Sons, New York 1998. (English)

Web links

• Literature by and about Helen McCloy in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography at Kirjasto ( Memento from January 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (English)

Remarks

1. ↑ The full name is not used in library and association catalogs
2. ↑ Exact date of birth  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. only in Novel Guide found  
3. ↑ Official Hp of the Brooklyn Friends School ( Memento of the original from December 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)  
4. ↑ According to the relevant library and association catalogs, the publication year "1933" given on the web is incorrect
5. ↑ A more detailed consideration of the protagonist Dr. Basil Willing is on the Kirjasto website ( January 19, 2015 memento on the Internet Archive )
6. ^ List of MWA presidents
7. ↑ More details on the official Hp of the MWA (English)
8. ↑ Official Hp Westport Town Crier (English)
9. ^ Roger M. Sobin: The Essential Mystery List: For Readers, Collectors, and Librarians . Poisened Pen Press, Arizona 2007, p. 302.
10. ^ HRF Keating: Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books . Xanadu, London 1987. (Online list from Classic Crime Fiction)
11. ^ Art Bourgeau: The Mystery Lover's Companion . Crown, New York 1986.
12. ↑ Official Hp
13. ^ Roger M. Sobin: The Essential Mystery List: For Readers, Collectors, and Librarians . Poisened Pen Press, Arizona 2007, p. 339.
14. ↑ Ellery Queen: Queen's Quorum: A History of the Detective-Crime Short Story as Revealed by the 125 Most Important Books Published in This Field, 1845-1967 . Greenhill Books, London 1986.
15. ↑ It was first published in the USA in 1951. In Great Britain for the first time in 1965 with Victor Gollancz, London, under the title Surprise, Surprise!
16. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} A Dr. Basil Willing short story
17. ↑ The story The Singing Diamonds first appeared in: Ellery Queen (Ed.): The Queen's awards. Fourth series, The winners of the fourth annual detective short-story contest . Victor Gollancz, London 1951.