H F Heard

Henry Fitzgerald Heard (1889-1971) was born in London, studied at Cambridge University, then turned to writing essays and books signing them Gerald Heard, the name under which all his non-fiction appeared. He moved to the United States in 1937, accompanied by his friend Aldous Huxley, and soon afterwards founded a college to teach meditation and other spiritual practices. Mr. Mycroft appeared in two additional novels by Heard: Reply Paid (1942) and The Notched Hairpin (1949). Among Heard’s other science fiction and mystery novels, perhaps his best-known work is the short story “The President of the U. S. A., Detective,” which won the first prize in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine‘s contest in 1947.