author
St. John Hankin
1869–1909
An Edwardian playwright and essayist with a sharp eye for social manners, he helped shape the "New Drama" alongside better-known contemporaries like Shaw and Galsworthy. His plays blend wit, satire, and a cool look at middle-class life.
2 Audiobooks
The Last of the De Mullins: A Play Without a Preface
by St. John Hankin
Mr. Punch's Dramatic Sequels
by St. John Hankin
About the author
Born in Southampton on September 25, 1869, St. John Emile Clavering Hankin was educated at Malvern and Merton College, Oxford. He worked as a journalist before turning more fully to drama, and he became part of the movement known as the Edwardian "New Drama," which pushed English theatre toward more modern social subjects.
Hankin is remembered for satirical comedies and essays that examined the habits and hypocrisies of respectable society. His best-known plays include The Two Mr. Wetherbys, The Return of the Prodigal, The Charity That Began at Home, and The Last of the De Mullins. Though admired in his own time, he did not live long enough to build the larger reputation many felt he deserved.
He died in 1909 at the age of 39. Later readers and theatre historians have returned to his work for its intelligence, dryness, and surprisingly modern view of family life and social performance.