If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.
You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

Simpson, Helen

Page history last edited by Elizabeth Foxwell 15 years, 2 months ago

Helen DeGuerry Simpson (1897-1940) was born in Sydney on 1 December 1897. She came of a family that had been settled in New South Wales for over a 100 years. Her great-grandfather, Piers Simpson, R.N., was associated with Sir Thomas Mitchell, and her maternal grandfather, the Marquis de Lauret, settled at Goulburn some 50 years before her birth. Her father, Edward Percy Simpson, was a well-known solicitor at Sydney who married Anne de Lauret. Helen Simpson was educated at the Rose Bay convent, and at Abbotsleigh, Wahroonga, and in 1914 she went to France for further study. When war broke out she crossed to England and was employed by the admiralty in decoding messages in foreign languages. She then went to Oxford, studied music, and failing in her examination for the mus. bach. degree took up writing. Her series detective was actor Sir John Saumarez.

Miss Simpson visited Australia in 1927 and in the same year married Denis John Browne, F.R.C.S., a fellow Australian practising in London and a nephew of T. A. Browne, "Rolf Boldrewood".

In 1937 Miss Simpson came out to Australia under engagement to the Australian broadcasting commission. She gave an excellent series of talks and while in Australia collected material for a novel set in Sydney about a 100 years before, Under Capricorn, which appeared in 1937. She was then apparently in perfect health but became ill in 1938. She was operated on in 1940, but died after months of suffering on 14 October 1940. Her husband survived her with a daughter. Three of her novels, Enter Sir John (1929), Printer's Devil (1930), and Re-enter Sir John (1932), were written in conjunction with Clemence Dane. An associate member of the Detection Club, she contributed to its round-robin works The Floating Admiral (1931) and Ask a Policeman (1933).

Helen Simpson was tall and handsome with much richness and charm of personality. She was a good musician, widely read, and full of unusual knowledge; her hobbies ranged from cookery past and present, to the collection of books on witchcraft. She was an excellent broadcaster and public speaker, and was much admired in London literary circles where she had made a place of her own.