George Pearson

author

George Pearson

A pioneer of British silent cinema, this director, producer, and screenwriter helped shape the language of early film after beginning his career as a schoolteacher. His work is remembered for its imagination, energy, and belief in what movies could do.

1 Audiobook

The Escape of a Princess Pat Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months' imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany into Holland

The Escape of a Princess Pat Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months' imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany into Holland

by George Pearson, Edward Edwards

About the author

Born in Kennington, London, in 1875, George Pearson first trained as a teacher and held senior school posts before turning to film. According to the British Film Institute and Britannica, he entered the industry in the 1910s and became one of the notable creative figures in British silent cinema.

Pearson worked as a director, producer, and writer, and is especially associated with the silent era, when he developed a reputation for lively, inventive filmmaking. Reference works describe him as a pioneer of British film, and his career later included work connected with documentary and educational filmmaking.

He lived a long life, dying in 1973, and is still remembered less as a celebrity than as an important builder of early British cinema. For listeners interested in film history, his story offers a glimpse of a moment when the possibilities of the medium were still being discovered.