author
Harold Owen
1872–1930
A journalist and playwright from England, he is best remembered for writing about life in the Potteries and for the stage work that later fed into several versions of Mr. Wu. His books and plays suggest a writer drawn to both local industry and popular drama.
1 Audiobook
Mr. Wu Based on the Play "Mr. Wu" by H. M. Vernon and Harold Owen
by Louise Jordan Miln, Harold Owen, Harry M. Vernon
About the author
Born in Burslem, Staffordshire, on May 3, 1872, Harold Owen built his writing around the world he knew well. He worked as a journalist and also wrote for the stage, giving his work a direct, readable style.
He is associated with The Staffordshire Potter, a book focused on the pottery industry and the people shaped by it, and with the play Mr. Wu, which later appeared in film versions in 1918, 1919, and 1927. Those two strands of work show his range: one grounded in a specific industrial region, the other reaching a much wider popular audience.
Reliable biographical details online are fairly limited, so some parts of his life remain hard to pin down with confidence. What does come through clearly is that he was an early 20th-century writer whose work connected regional observation, journalism, and commercial theatre before his death in 1930.