Grant Allen | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Grant Allen, byElliott & Fry | |
| Born | Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (1848-02-24)24 February 1848 |
| Died | 25 October 1899(1899-10-25) (aged 51) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | Oxford |
| Notable works | The Woman Who Did The Evolution of the Idea of God The British Barbarians |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (February 24, 1848 – October 25, 1899) was a Canadian science writer and novelist, educated in England. He was a public promoter ofevolution in the second half of the nineteenth century.[1]
Allen was born onWolfe Island nearKingston, Canada West (known asOntario after Confederation), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister fromDublin, Ireland.[2] His mother was a daughter of the fifthBaron de Longueuil. Allen was educated at home until, at age 13, he and his parents moved to the United States, then to France, and finally to the United Kingdom.[3] He was educated atKing Edward's School in Birmingham and atMerton College inOxford, both in the United Kingdom.[4]
After graduation, Allen studied in France, taught atBrighton College in 1870–71, and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College, a black college inJamaica.[5] Despite being the son of a minister, Allen became an atheist and a socialist.
After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. A 2007 book byOliver Sacks cites with approval one of Allen's early articles, "Note-Deafness" (a description of what became known asamusia, published in 1878 in the learned journalMind).[6]
Allen's first books dealt with scientific subjects, and includePhysiological Æsthetics (1877) andFlowers and Their Pedigrees (1886) He was first influenced byassociationist psychology as expounded byAlexander Bain and byHerbert Spencer, the latter who especially espoused the transition from associationist psychology toDarwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and on perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms, leading to a radically new vision of plant life that influenced H.G. Wells and helped transform later botanical research.[7]
On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer's death.
After assistingSir W. W. Hunter with hisGazetteer 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 titledThe 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.[8] Owing to his concern with these subjects, Allen was associated withThomas Hardy, whose novelJude the Obscure (1895) was published the same year asThe Woman Who Did.
In his career, Allen wrote two novels under female pseudonyms. One of these, the short novelThe Type-writer Girl, he wrote under the name Olive Pratt Rayner.
Another work,The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounds a theory of religion on heterodox lines comparable toHerbert Spencer's "ghost theory".[9] Allen's theory became well known and brief references to it appear in a review byMarcel Mauss,Durkheim's nephew, in the articles ofWilliam James and in the works ofSigmund Freud.G. K. Chesterton wrote on what he considered the flawed premise of the idea, arguing that the idea of God preceded humanmythologies, rather than developing from them. Chesterton said of Allen's book on the evolution of the idea of God: "it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book on the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen".[10]
Allen also became a pioneer inscience fiction, with the novelThe British Barbarians (1895) This book, published about the same time asH. G. Wells'sThe Time Machine (which appeared in January–May 1895, and which includes a mention of Allen[3][11]), also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. Allen's short storyThe Thames Valley Catastrophe (published December 1897 inThe Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massivevolcanic eruption.
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Allen married twice, first to Caroline Ann Bootheway (1846–1871) and secondly to Ellen Jerrard (b, 1853) with whom he had one son, Jerrard Grant Allen (1878–1946), a theatrical agent/manager who in 1913 married the actress and singerViolet Englefield. They had a son, Reginald "Reggie" Grant Allen (1910-1985).[citation needed]
Grant Allen's nephew,Grant Richards, was a writer and publisher who founded theGrant Richards publishing house. Allen encouraged his nephew's interest in books and publishing and helped him obtain his first positions in the book trade.[12] Richards was later to publish a number of books written by his uncle, includingThe Evolution of the Idea of God and those in the book series Grant Allen's Historical Guides.[13]
Allen's nieces by marriage, novelistNetta Syrett, and artistsMabel Syrett andNellie Syrret all contributed work toThe Yellow Book.[14][15]
In 1893 Allen left London for the hills around theDevil's Punch Bowl, enthusing on the advantages of the change of scene: "Up here on the free hills, the sharp air blows in upon us, limpid and clear from a thousand leagues of open ocean; down there in the stagnant town, it stagnates and ferments."[16]
Grant Allen died of liver cancer at his home onHindhead,Haslemere, Surrey, England, on 25 October 1899.[17] He died before finishingHilda Wade. The novel's final two episodes were completed by his friend and neighbour DrArthur Conan Doyle; the final episode appeared under the appropriate title "The Episode of the Dead Man Who Spoke" in theStrand Magazine in 1900.[18]
Many histories of detective fiction mention Allen as an innovator. The illustrious Colonel Clay is a precursor of other gentleman rogue characters; he notably bears a strong resemblance toMaurice Leblanc'sArsène Lupin, introduced some years later. BothMiss Cayley's Adventures andHilda Wade feature early female detectives.[19]
The Scene of the Crime Festival, an annual festival celebrating Canadian mystery fiction, takes place annually onWolfe Island, Ontario, near Kingston, Allen's birthplace and honors Allen.[20]
A metal arch commemorating Allen, was designed by Lucy Quinnell and installed at the entrance to Allen Court inDorking, Surrey in 2013.[21]
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"What a misfortune it is that we should thus be compelled to let our boys' schooling interfere with their education!"[22]
The first extended description of amusia in the medical literature was an 1878 paper by Grant Allen in the journalMind [...] Allen's lengthy paper included a superb case of a young man whom he had "abundant opportunities of observing and experimenting upon" - the sort of detailed case study that established experimental neurology and psychology in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
One last matter which agitated [Allen] was meeting a professional obligation.The Strand had been running his serial Hilda Wade, and the final two episodes were yet to be produced. Doyle, one of the kindest of men, either wrote them both or finished them off.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Cousin, John William (1910).A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – viaWikisource.
