{{short description|American novelist, biographer and monologist}} {{Infobox Writer | name = Helen Howe | image = | imagesize = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = Helen Huntington Howe | birth_date = {{birth date text|January 11, 1905}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|1975|2|1|1905|1|11}} | death_place = | occupation = | nationality = American | education = Radcliffe College | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | debut_works = | influences = | influenced = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} '''Helen Huntington Howe Allen''' ({{nee|'''Howe'''}}; January 11, 1905 – February 1, 1975) was an American novelist, biographer and monologist.
==Early life and education== Helen Huntington Howe was born to Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe and Fanny Huntington (Quincy) Howe on January 11, 1905. Her father was an author and biographer, and her mother was known as an essayist and author. Her mother was from a long line of Quincys in Boston, stretching back through her great-great-great-grandfather Josiah Quincy Jr. Her older brother Quincy became a writer, editor and radio commentator. Her younger brother Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe became a law professor at Harvard University and a biographer.
Howe was educated in private schools in Boston including Milton Academy, where she graduated in 1922. She attended Radcliffe College for a year. She also attended the Theatre Guild School in New York. Howe had a skill in mimicry and discovered she enjoyed writing her own character sketches to perform.
==Career== She had a career as a monologist for over fifteen years, with shows across America. She gave several performances in The White House. In 1936 she took her show to both the Arts Theatre and Mercury Theater in London.
Howe also wrote books exploring the kinds of characters she portrayed in her sketches. Her first novel was published in 1943. She began the second half of her career more as a novelist.<ref name="The New York Times 1975">{{cite web | title=Helen Howe, Satiric Monologist Who Became Writer, Dies at 70 | website=The New York Times | date=1975-02-02 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/02/02/archives/helen-howe-satiric-monologist-who-became-writer-dies-at-70.html | access-date=2020-01-15}}</ref><ref name="Pinzer Rosen Davidson Howe 1997 p. 41">{{cite book | last1=Pinzer | first1=M. | last2=Rosen | first2=R. | last3=Davidson | first3=S. | last4=Howe | first4=F.Q. | last5=Howe | first5=F. | title=The Maimie Papers: Letters from an Ex-prostitute | publisher=Feminist Press at the City University of New York | series=Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish women's series | year=1997 | isbn=978-1-55861-143-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oOB⁰SQ5cZXbcC&pg=PR41 | access-date=2020-01-15 | page=41}}</ref><ref name="Howe 1996 p. 57">{{cite book | last=Howe | first=S. | title=Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979 | publisher=New Directions | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-8112-2376-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i0ROAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 | access-date=2020-01-15 | page=57}}</ref><ref name="Merriam-Webster 1984 p. 896">{{cite book | last=Merriam-Webster | first=Inc | title=Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms | publisher=Merriam-Webster | series=A Merriam-Webster | year=1984 | isbn=978-0-87779-341-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8N4UReTJYhUC&pg=PA896 | access-date=2020-01-15 | page=896}}</ref><ref name="Heller 1905">{{cite web | last=Heller | first=Terry | title=Jewett Texts | website=Coe College - Cedar Rapids Iowa | date=1905-01-11 | url=http://www.public.coe.edu/~theller/soj/bio/gentle-am.html | access-date=2020-01-15}}</ref><ref name="Hurley 2018 p. 400">{{cite book | last=Hurley | first=N. | title=Circulating Queerness: Before the Gay and Lesbian Novel | publisher=University of Minnesota Press | year=2018 | isbn=978-1-4529-5700-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dCp0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT400 | access-date=2020-01-15 | page=400}}</ref><ref name="ANB">{{cite web |title=Howe, Helen (1905-1975), writer and monologuist {{!}} American National Biography |url=https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1602702 |website=www.anb.org |language=en |doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1602702|year=2000 |last1=Kimball |first1=Sue Laslie |isbn=978-0-19-860669-7 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=THE LONDON JOURNAL, 1774–1775 |url=https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1456 |website=Colonial Society of Massachusetts |language=en}}</ref>
==Personal life== Howe married Reginald Allen, who had worked as a curator of the Gilbert and Sullivan Collection in the Pierpont Morgan Library. She lived in New York, on Fifth Avenue.
Howe died in 1975. Her service was at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine and her grave is in Mount Wollaston Cemetery, Quincy, Massachusetts. Her papers are archived in Harvard.<ref name="The New York Times 1975"/><ref name="Find A Grave-gedenkplek 1905">{{cite web | title=Helen Frances Huntington Howe Allen (1905-1975) -... | website=Find A Grave-gedenkplek | date=1905-01-11 | url=https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/132752938/helen-frances_huntington-allen | language=nl | access-date=2020-01-15}}</ref>{{unreliable source?|date=January 2020}}<ref name="HOLLIS for Archival Discovery 2020">{{cite web | title=Collection: Additional papers of Helen Howe, 1872-1975 | website=HOLLIS for Archival Discovery | date=2020-01-15 | url=https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/6818 | access-date=2020-01-15}}</ref><ref name="HOLLIS for Archival Discovery">{{cite web | title=Collection: Papers of Helen Howe, 1872-1975 | website=HOLLIS for Archival Discovery | date=2020-01-15 | url=https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/5425 | access-date=2020-01-15}}</ref><ref name="ANB"/>
==Bibliography== * ''The whole heart'', 1943 * ''We happy few'', 1946 * ''The circle of the day'', 1950 * ''The success,'' 1956 * ''The fires of autumn'', 1959 * ''The gentle Americans, 1864-1960 : biography of a breed'', 1965 * ''Wheels: biographical sketch of John Brooks Wheelwright'', 1966
==References and sources== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Howe, Helen}} Category:1905 births Category:1975 deaths Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:Writers from Boston Category:20th-century American novelists Category:20th-century American biographers Category:American women biographers Category:Novelists from Massachusetts Category:Monologists