Grant Allen
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Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (February 24, 1848 - October 25, 1899) was a science writer, author and novelist; an able upholder of the theory of evolution.
Born near Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the son of an emigrant Anglo-Scottish Protestant minister and grandson of the fifth Baron of Longueuil, he studied at King Edward's School in Birmingham, Merton College in Oxford, both in the United Kingdom.[1] He also studied in France and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College in Jamaica.
Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic and a socialist. After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to the UK, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works.
His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886). He was first influenced by associationist psychology as it was expounded by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, the latter often considered the most important individual in the transition from associationist psychology to Darwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms. On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica, also grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer was dead.
After assisting Sir W. W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India in the early 1880s, Allen turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels. In 1895, his scandalous book titled The Woman Who Did, promulgating certain startling views on marriage and kindred questions, became a bestseller. The book told the story of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock.
Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavoring to explain everything by one theory. This "ghost theory" was often seen as a derivative of Herbert Spencer's theory. However, it was well known and brief references to it can be found in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud.
He was also a pioneer in Canadian science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine", also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption.
Many histories of detective fiction also mention Allen as an innovator. His gentleman rogue, the illustrious Colonel Clay, is seen as a forerunner to later characters. In fact, Allen's character bear strong resemblance to Maurice Leblanc's French works about Arsene Lupin, published many years later; and both Miss Cayley's Adventures and Hilda Wade feature early female detectives.
Allen was married twice and had one son. He died at his home on Hindhead, Haslemere, Surrey, England on October 25, 1899. He died before finishing Hilda Wade. The novel's final episode, which he dictated to his friend, doctor and neighbor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from his bed appeared under the appropriate title, The Episode of the Dead Man Who Spoke in the Strand Magazine in 1900.
An annual festival celebrating Canadian mystery fiction is held annually on Wolfe Island, near Kingston, Allen's birthplace.
[edit] Partial bibliography
- Physiological Æsthetics (1877)
- Philistia - (1884)
- Strange Stories - (1884)
- Babylon - (1885)
- Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886)
- The Devil's Die - (1888)
- The White Man's Foot - (1888)
- The Jaws of Death - (1889)
- The Great Taboo - (1891)
- The British Barbarians - (1895)
- The Desire of the Eyes - (1895)
- The Woman Who Did - (1895)
- An African Millionaire - (1897)
- The Evolution of the Idea of God - (1897)
- Miss Cayley's Adventures - (1899)
- Twelve Tales: With a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo - (1899)
- Hilda Wade - (1900)
- The Backslider - (1901)
- Colour Sense
- Evolutionist at Large
- Colin Clout's Calendar
- Story of the Plants
- In All Shades
- Paris
[edit] References
- ^ Head, Dominic (2006). The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge University Press, 19. ISBN 0521831792.
- This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
- Barbara Arnett Melchiori, Grant Allen: The Downward Path which Leads to Fiction (Rome: Bulzoni Editore, 2000), ISBN 88-8319-526-4
- Peter Morton, "The Busiest Man in England" : Grant Allen and the Writing Trade, 1875-1900" London: Palgrave, 2005.
- Edward Clodd, "Grant Allen: A Memoir"
- Grant Allen, "My First Book. With an Introduction by Jerome K. Jerome." London Chatto & Windus, 1894
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 104.
[edit] External links
