Mary Patricia Hangman was born in Forth Worth, Texas. Later she took the name of her stepfather. When she was six, she moved with her mother and stepfather to New York. At the age of fifteen she started writing. She studied English, Latin and Greek at Barnard College, Columbia and obtained her BA in 1942. At twenty-three, she decided to become a writer but it took her six years to get her first novel published. The novel was bought by Alfred Hitchcock who made it into a film. In 1955 her first 'Ripley' novel was published. Tom Ripley became her best-known and most enduring character, featuring in five novels. He was not a detective but a murderer! Her novels are psychological thrillers.
In 1962, Highsmith moved permanently to Europe. First staying in Italy, then in England before settling in France. During the last years of her life, which she spent in Switzerland, she wrote very little.