A talented off-beat journalist and social observer, Colin MacInnes is best known for his trilogy of London novels which includes Absolute Beginners as well as City of Spades and Mr Love and Justice. He also wrote about the allied occupation of Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, in June in Her Spring and England, Half English. He died of cancer in 1976. Since his death his best essays, fiction and journalism have been published in various collections.