Alan Sullivan

Edward Alan Sullivan was a Canadian writer born in Montreal on November 29, 1868, and he died on August 6, 1947. He is generally described as a poet, novelist, and short-story writer, and he is especially remembered for historical and adventure fiction with strong Canadian settings.

His life seems to have fed directly into his work. Sources describe him as the son of an Anglican clergyman, with part of his childhood spent in Chicago and later in Canada, and note that he also worked as an engineer. That mix of practical experience and love of landscape helped give his books their sense of movement, place, and frontier life.

Sullivan wrote prolifically across several decades, and later critics have noted that he produced more than forty works of fiction. Among them, The Great Divide from 1935 is the title most often singled out, a historical novel centered on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Though not as widely known now as he once was, he was an important popular voice in Canadian writing of his era.