Mary Quayle Innis

Mary Emma Quayle Innis (April 13, 1899 – January 10, 1972) was a Canadian novelist, short story writer and author of historical works including An Economic History of Canada; three illustrated books for children about the country's founding; a history of the Canadian YMCA; and, Travellers West, an account of three 19th-century expeditions across western Canada. In addition, she researched and edited several books about women and Canadian history including a scholarly edition of Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, kept from 1791 to 1796, by Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe, the wife of John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada.

Innis worked with her husband, the Canadian economic historian Harold Innis, helping to edit his books for publication. She also contributed ideas that may have influenced his later work especially on the role of communications media in shaping civilizations. After his death in 1952, she helped edit and revise four of his works. For the second edition of Empire and Communications in 1972, she incorporated Innis's marginal notes in the footnotes, tracing and attributing quotations and expanding references.

They were married in Wilmette in May 1921, and moved to Toronto, where Innis was a lecturer at the University of Toronto. Mary Innis typed his PhD thesis on the history of the Canadian Pacific Railway and helped organize the bibliography, footnotes, references and index. It was published as a book in 1923.

Together they had four children, Donald (1924), Mary (1927), Hugh (1930), and Anne (1933).

Innis published over eighty short stories along with a novel, four edited collections and several historical books and articles.

Innis died in Toronto on January 10, 1972.

Select bibliography Innis, Mary Quayle. An Economic History of Canada. Toronto: The Ryerson Press. 1935. Innis, Mary Quayle. Stand on a Rainbow. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1944. "fiction, for a juvenile audience" Innis, Mary Quayle. Mrs Simcoe's Diary. New York: St Martin's Press. 1965. Innis, Mary Quayle. The Clear Spirit. Twenty Canadian Women and Their Times. Published for the Canadian Federation of University Women by University of Toronto Press. Edited by Mary Quayle Innis. 1967. Innis, Mary Quayle, A. Cameron, J.H. Richards. Living in Canada. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin. 1968.