Colin MacInnes was an English novelist, essayist, and radio broadcaster best known for his commentary on popular culture and his series of three novels set in 1950s London: City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959), and Mr Love and Justice (1960). MacInnes was born in London, but not long after the First World War, his family travelled to Australia, where he spent his childhood and adolescence, returning to England in 1931. As a young man, MacInnes regularly spent time abroad, including his army service in Europe during the Second World War. These early migrations, both voluntary and involuntary, affected MacInnes profoundly, contributing to his persistent sense later in life that he was an outsider in terms of national, cultural, and social identity.