Charles Hannan

Charles Hannan, whose legal name was Robert Charles Hannan, was born in Glasgow on August 28, 1863, and died in London on January 10, 1922. He was educated at Edinburgh Collegiate School and Glasgow University, and later joined his father's East India and China merchant firm.

That business life seems to have fed directly into his writing. Reference sources describe him as a Scottish novelist and playwright who traveled widely in the Far East and became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His fiction included novels such as A Swallow's Wing, Chin Chin-wa, The Wooing of Avis Grayle, and The Betrothal of James.

Today he is especially remembered by genre readers for a few imaginative works on the edge of fantasy and science fiction. The Betrothal of James is noted for its bizarre comic premise, Thuka of the Moon for its fantasy setting, and The Electric Man for an early robot-like figure used in farce. No suitable verified portrait image was found from the sources checked, so a profile image is not included here.