author
Gilbert Cannan
1884–1955
A gifted but now less widely known British novelist and dramatist, he wrote vividly about artistic life, modern relationships, and the pressures of his time. His work includes the semi-autobiographical Lawrie Saga, and his strong opposition to the First World War shaped both his public life and his writing.
6 Audiobooks
Mummery: A Tale of Three Idealists
by Gilbert Cannan
Young Earnest: The Romance of a Bad Start in Life
by Gilbert Cannan
Windmills: A book of fables
by Gilbert Cannan
Mendel: A Story of Youth
by Gilbert Cannan
About the author
Born in Manchester in 1884, Gilbert Cannan became a British novelist, dramatist, translator, and theatre critic. He studied at King's College, Cambridge, moved in literary and theatrical circles, and built a reputation as a sharp, energetic writer with a strong interest in modern ideas and the lives of artists and intellectuals.
He is best remembered for the Lawrie Saga, a sequence of semi-autobiographical novels, and for fiction that drew on his own experiences in bohemian and literary settings. During the First World War he was a committed pacifist, a stance that set him apart in wartime Britain and became an important part of how readers understood him.
Although he was once seen as a major promise in English letters, his career was disrupted by severe mental health struggles, and his reputation faded after his lifetime. Still, his books offer a vivid glimpse of early 20th-century literary life and of a writer trying to stay honest in a troubled age.