Michael Innes

Michael Innes is the pseudonym of the Scottish author John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (1906-1994). Stewart was born in Edinburgh, where he also grew up, and went on to study at several universities across Europe. He later became a lecturer in English at various universities in the UK and Australia. In addition to writing crime fiction under the name Michael Innes, Stewart also wrote contemporary fiction and non-fiction using his real name, J.I.M. Stewart.

Michael Innes is best known for the Inspector Appleby series, which features the Scotland Yard detective John Appleby. Innes published nearly fifty crime novels and short story collections in his lifetime, many of which featured Appleby. The author attended Edinburgh Academy and later studied English literature at Oriel College, Oxford. He lectured in English at the University of Leeds from 1930 to 1935, and spent the succeeding ten years as Jury Professor of English at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. In 1949, he returned to the United Kingdom to become a lecturer at the Queen's University of Belfast, before becoming a Student (Fellow) of Christ Church, Oxford, and eventually a professor by the time of his retirement in 1973. Innes passed away in 1994 at the age of 88.