Grant Allen

Grant Allen (February 24, 1848 - October 25, 1899) was a scientific writer and novelist; an able upholder of the evolution doctrine and an expounder of Darwinism.

Related Topics:
February 24 - 1848 - October 25 - 1899 - Novelist - Evolution - Darwinism

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Born Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the son of an English emigrant Protestant minister. He studied in England and France and in his mid twenties became a professor at Queens College in Jamaica.

Related Topics:
Kingston - Ontario - Canada - Protestant - England - France - Jamaica

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Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic 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.

Related Topics:
Agnostic - Socialist

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His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees. After assisting Sir W.W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India, he turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels

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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.

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Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God, propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavouring to explain everything by one theory.

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He was also a pioneer in Canadian science fiction, with the 1895 time travel novel The British Barbarians.

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Allen died at his home on Hindhead, Haslemere, Surrey, England on October 25, 1899.

Related Topics:
Hindhead - Haslemere - Surrey - England - October 25 - 1899

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