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Gilbert Eric Cannan (25 June 1884 – 30 June 1955) was a British novelist and dramatist.
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Born inManchester of Scottish descent, he got on badly with his family, and in 1897 he was sent to live inOxford with the economistEdwin Cannan.[1] He was educated atManchester Grammar School andKing's College, Cambridge; he started on a legal career, but turned to writing in 1908, after a short spell as an actor.
Cannan worked first as a translator, and a reviewer in London publications. Many of his novels are in part autobiographical, and fit into anovel sequence theLawrie Saga, around the character Stephen Lawrie.Samuel Butler was a major influence on his fiction. In 1914, the novelistHenry James in an article inThe Times named Cannan as one of four significant up-and-coming authors, alongsideD. H. Lawrence,Compton Mackenzie andHugh Walpole.[2]
He was employed as a secretary byJ. M. Barrie, working with him in their efforts against censorship of the theatre by theLord Chamberlain. A relationship developed in 1909 between Cannan and Barrie's wifeMary Ansell, a former actress who felt neglected in her marriage. Cannan had been wooingKathleen Bruce, who at the same time was receiving advances from the explorerRobert Falcon Scott. When Bruce decided to marry Scott, Mary Barrie's sympathy for Cannan developed a momentum of its own. Her husband sought to be reconciled, but relented and divorced her in a high-profile case, and she and Cannan were married in 1910. Cannan was caricatured as Mr. Gunn, a minor character inGeorge Bernard Shaw's 1911 dramaFanny's First Play.
During World War I he was apacifist and thenconscientious objector, and was involved in theNational Council Against Conscription. He used his experiences in later novels, making the character Melian Stokes inPugs and Peacocks a portrait ofBertrand Russell. He had knownOttoline Morrell from before the war. During it he moved in her circle, introducing her to D. H. Lawrence, and knew alsoDora Carrington,Dorothy Brett and the artistMark Gertler. Cannan's bookMendel was based on Gertler's early life (Mendel being hisYiddish given name), and explored his relationships withC. R. W. Nevinson and Carrington. Gertler paintedGilbert Cannan and his Mill; the picture is now in theAshmolean Museum. The mill was atCholesbury in Buckinghamshire, where Cannan was living in 1916, and which attracted a number of his intellectual circle (including Lawrence and his wife Frieda, andKatherine Mansfield andJohn Middleton Murry). The picture also shows the Cannans' twoNewfoundland dogs, Sammy[3] on the left and Luath, who was also Barrie's dog before his divorce from Mary Ansell and the inspiration forNana, the Darling children's nurse inPeter Pan.[4] In 1916, partly in response to the devastating effects of the war and the threat of conscription, Cannan suffered a mental breakdown, an experience which he vividly described in his book,The Release of the Soul.[5]
His marriage ended in 1918 when he had an affair with Gwen Wilson who later marriedHenry Mond in 1920 while Cannan was lecturing in the United States. Unconventionally, Cannan lived with Wilson and her new husband in aménage à trois in their home, Mulberry House, inSmith Square,Westminster. A hint of their relationship is suggested in Cannan's dedication ofLetters from a Distance "to Gwen, without whose courage, tenderness and force there would have been no author to write these letters."
After the war Cannan devoted himself to writing, translation work and travel but another mental breakdown in 1923 proved untreatable. He became a mental patient at thePriory Hospital,Roehampton. He then spent the rest of his life confined toHolloway Sanatorium nearVirginia Water where he died of cancer on 30 June 1955.[6]
The poetMay Wedderburn Cannan and her sister, the writerJoanna Cannan, were cousins of his, daughters of the academic Charles Cannan (Dean of Trinity College, Oxford, and Secretary to the Delegates of Oxford University Press); as was Professor Edwin Cannan, the noted LSE economist (and brother of Charles Cannan); Joanna's daughterDiana Pullein-Thompson was his biographer. Joanna Cannan's son,Denis Cannan was also a dramatist.
Works by or aboutGilbert Cannan atWikisource
