OBITUARY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 93, 16 October 1940, Page 10

OBITUARY

MISS HELEN SIMPSON

(Received October 16, noon.) LONDON, October 15. The novelist Miss Helen Simpson is dead, after a short illness.

Miss Helen de Guerry Simpson, who has achieved distinction both with her own works and in collaboration with Clemence Dane, visited her native Australia in 1937. She was born in Sydney 42 years ago, and when she was 16 went to Europe with the intention of studying music in Paris. That was in 1914, and the outbreak of war prevented her from carrying out her project. So she went to Oxford to study languages,, thinking they would be a useful equipment for war work. They were, and she went to London to join the "Wrens," and for the rest of the war years worked on translating naval Ihessages ar.d codes. Miss Simpson abandoned a musical career for literature, and was one of the few Australian writers with a world public. In 1927 she married an Australian—Dennis Browne, a nephew of "Rolf Boldrewood," and now a prominent children's surgeon in London. There is a daughter 11 years old. Her name is Clemence —after Clemence Dane, with whom Miss Simpson has collaborated in writing "Enter Sir Johrj," "Printer's Devil," and "Re-enter Sir John," and with whom she had an intimate and valued friendship. Miss Simpson's first novel "Acquittal,'" was published in 1925, and among her best-known books were "Boomerang," which was published in 1932 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, "The Woman on the Beast," and "Saraband for Dead Lovers." Miss Simpson was a member of the committee of the StockHeinemann Prize.