The Busiest Man in England

Grant Allen and the Writing Trade, 1875-1900

P. Morton

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781349529391, 9781403966261
• eBook ISBN: 9781403980991
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

This book is a critical biography of Grant Allen, (1848-1899), the first for a century, based on all the surviving primary sources. Born in Kingston, Ontario, into a cultured and affluent family, Allen was educated in France and England. A mysterious marriage while he was an Oxford undergraduate wrecked his academic career and radicalized his views on sexual and marital questions, as did a three-year teaching stint in Jamaica. Despite his lifelong ill health and short life, Allen was a writer of extraordinary productivity and range. About half - more than 30 books and many hundreds of articles - reflects interests which ran from Darwinian biology to cultural travel guides. His prosperity, however, was underpinned by fiction; more than 30 novels, including The Woman Who Did, which has attracted much recent attention from feminist critics and historians. The Better End of Grub Street uses Allen's career to examine the role and status of the freelance author/journalist in the late-Victorian period. Allen's career delineates what it took to succeed in this notoriously tough profession.

Table of contents

• Cover
• “The Busiest Man in England”
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Canada and Oxford (1848–1873)
• Chapter 2 Jamaica (1873–1876)
• Chapter 3 Setting out the Stall (1876–1880)
• Chapter 4 “A Pedlar Crying Stuff”: Selling the Wares (1880–1889)
• Chapter 5 The Stock in Trade: Writing Science
• Chapter 6 The Stock in Trade: Light Fiction
• Chapter 7 The Prosperous Tradesman (1890–1895)
• Chapter 8 Dealing with the “Dissenting Grocer”
• Chapter 9 Retailing The Woman Who Did
• Chapter 10 Last Orders (1896–1899)
• Conclusion
• Abbreviations in the Notes
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index