Helen Howe

Helen Huntington Howe (January 11, 1905 – February 1, 1975) was an American monologist, novelist, and biographer who also appeared on Broadway. Born in Boston to Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe, an author and biographer, and Fanny Huntington (Quincy) Howe, an essayist and author, she came from a family with deep literary roots. Her mother's lineage traced back through multiple generations of Quincys in Boston, including her great-great-great-grandfather Josiah Quincy Jr. Her older brother Quincy became a writer, editor, and radio commentator, while her younger brother Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe went on to become a law professor at Harvard University and a biographer.

Howe received her early education at private schools in Boston, graduating from Milton Academy in 1922. She subsequently attended Radcliffe College for one year before enrolling at the Theatre Guild School in New York. It was during this period that she developed her skill in mimicry and began writing her own character sketches for performance.

Her Broadway career spanned 1928 to 1930 and included appearances in the play The Vikings and the revue George White's Scandals. Alongside her stage work, Howe built a career as a monologist that lasted more than fifteen years, performing her one-woman shows across the United States. She gave several performances at the White House, and in 1936 she brought her show to London, where she performed at both the Arts Theatre and the Mercury Theater.

The characters Howe portrayed in her sketches also informed her work as a writer. Her first novel, The Whole Heart, was published in 1943, marking a shift toward the second half of her career as a novelist. Her subsequent books included 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), and Wheels: Biographical Sketch of John Brooks Wheelwright (1966).

Howe married Reginald Allen, who had worked as a curator of the Gilbert and Sullivan Collection at the Pierpont Morgan Library. The couple lived in New York on Fifth Avenue. She died on February 1, 1975, and her funeral service was held at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. She is buried at Mount Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy, Massachusetts, and her papers are archived at Harvard.