Colin MacInnes

Colin MacInnes (born August 20, 1914, London, England—died April 22, 1976, Hythe, Kent) was a British novelist and essayist who, writing in the 1950s, was among the first observers to chronicle both the Black immigrant experience in England and the advent of the teenager and youth culture, most notably in his trilogy of London novels, City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959), and Mr. Love and Justice (1960). Already marginalized because he was openly gay in an era when homosexuality was not only taboo but illegal, MacInnes immersed himself in subcultures that he celebrated but never could fully join and so lived much of his life, in the words of his biographer, Tony Gould, as an “inside outsider.”

Early life and work

MacInnes’s father, James McInnes (MacInnes would later add the a to his last name) was an opera singer. His mother, Angela, later gained fame as a novelist under her second husband’s name, Thirkell. She was the daughter of a classical scholar and the granddaughter the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones and was related to British prime minister Stanley Baldwin and to literary icon Rudyard Kipling. Among the family’s prominent friends were William Morris and J.M. Barrie.

When MacInnes was three years old, his parents divorced. His mother then married George Thirkell, an engineer serving in the Australian Imperial Force. In 1919 she, along with MacInnes and his elder brother, Graham (who would become an accomplished writer in his own right), accompanied Thirkell when he returned to Australia. There MacInnes excelled in school, participated in scouting, and was exposed to literature by his mother. When she split from Thirkell in 1929–30 and returned to Britain (with MacInnes’s younger half-brother in tow), Colin and Graham stayed to finish school. MacInnes soon rejoined his mother in England but did not remain with her long. Rather than return to Australia to attend university, he took a job in Brussels with the Imperial Continental Gas Association, for which he worked until the mid-1930s. Relocating to London, he became an art student, first at the Chelsea Polytechnic and then the Euston Road School of Drawing and Painting. During World War II he served in the British army’s intelligence corps.

Discover the fascinating events that shaped the world, straight from our editors.

SIGN UP

By clicking “Sign Up”, you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

After the war, MacInnes chose to pursue writing rather than painting and lectured on art, worked for BBC radio, and wrote art criticism for the Observer newspaper until he established himself as a freelance essayist. In 1950 he published his first novel, To the Victors Belong the Spoils, based on MacInnes’s experience with a field security detachment in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany during the war. Set in Australia, his second novel, June in Her Spring (1952), is a story of young love that broaches the subject of homosexuality.

Essays and journalism

In the mid-1950s MacInnes’s essays began appearing widely in periodicals. While he wrote about a wide array of subjects—ranging from portraits of artists and novelists to considerations of the Elgin Marbles and sex workers—arguably, his most insightful pieces were participant-observer accounts of the world of London’s new Black immigrants (e.g., “A Short Guide for Jumbles,” 1956) and the culture of teenagers. MacInnes’s characterization of Black life in Britain was thoroughly sympathetic and embodied his hope for a harmoniously multiracial Britain, but it was also sometimes problematically naive and simplistic. Moreover, it was deeply sexualized as a result of his infatuation with Black men, especially Africans.

Although he was already in his 40s when it happened, MacInnes was among the first observers to recognize the dynamism and significance of the developing teenage subculture. Postwar prosperity and good-paying jobs had brought young people unprecedented levels of disposable cash, fueling their consumption of youth-oriented fashions, products such as soft drinks and motor scooters, and, especially, popular music. In essays such as “Young England, Half English: The Pied Piper from Bermondsey” (1957) and “Pop Songs and Teenagers” (1958), MacInnes identifies the teenage phenomenon; deconstructs the appeal of American-produced rock and roll, as well as the British answers to it (including skiffle); and advises his readers that they might not like the new music but that they ignore it at their own peril. In “Sharp Schmutter” (1959) he focuses on men’s fashion, contrasting the sharp, tailored style that he prefers (the forerunner of “mod” attire) with both mainstream design and the long Edwardian drape jackets favoured by British subculture’s first youth tribe, the rock-and-roll-loving Teddy Boys.

London trilogy

But, for all of the insights reflected in his journalistic essays—many of which were gathered in the collection England, Half English (1961)—MacInnes remains best known for three loosely connected novels known as the London trilogy.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

Later life and work

None of MacInnes’s later writing would have the impact of his earlier journalism and the London trilogy. He wrote another novel set in Australia, All Day Saturday (1966); a pair of historical novels, Westward to Laughter: A Novel of Adventure (1969) and Three Years to Play (1970); the book-length essay Loving Them Both: A Study of Bisexuality and Bisexuals (1973); and Out of the Garden: A Novel (1974), his final novel. In the mid-1960s he acted for a time as the press officer of a Black organization called Defence, and he was a supporter of the controversial Black power activist Michael X. Having contracted esophageal cancer, he died in 1976 and was buried at sea.