Alan Sullivan
Edward Alan Sullivan was a Canadian author born in Montreal in 1868, whose varied life experiences significantly influenced his literary contributions. Raised in a family with Church of England ties, he moved to Chicago as a child, where he developed a passion for outdoor exploration. This affinity for nature informed much of his writing, which encompasses adventure tales set in the wilderness. Sullivan's education included attendance at a Scottish boarding school and a brief civil engineering study at the University of Toronto, after which he worked as a surveyor and mineral prospector, even investing in land that later yielded gold.
In 1900, he married and shifted to a supervisory role at a rubber company in Toronto, during which time he began publishing books. His literary career flourished after relocating to England, where he wrote prolifically, particularly during his service in the Royal Air Force in World War I. Notably, he garnered the Governor General's Award in 1941, recognizing his significant contributions to literature. Sullivan's novels often mixed elements of romance, mystery, and adventure, reflecting themes of entrepreneurship and traditional Anglo-Saxon virtues. Although once popular, his works have become rare, leaving a legacy reflective of earlier societal values. Sullivan passed away in England in 1947.
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Alan Sullivan
Author
- Born: November 29, 1868
- Birthplace: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Died: August 6, 1947
Biography
Edward Alan Sullivan was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1868. His father was a Church of England clergyman who moved to Chicago to be rector of Trinity Church when Alan was only one. Surrounded by wilderness, Alan took up outdoor exploration, an experience which possibly influenced his later choice of profession and became the setting for his many tales of adventure.
Because of his family background and his own experience, Sullivan also had a grounding in the upper middle-class social graces and a certain degree of cosmopolitanism. As a teenager, he attended a rugged boarding school, Loretto, in Scotland. Then, after two years of a civil engineering course at the University of Toronto, he went to work on a survey crew with the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Apparently he felt some mental solitude even among the crew; he later spoke about the opportunity it offered for thinking, since he was without companions “of my own kind.” Later, he worked on his own as a surveyor and mineral prospector. This led to an investment in northern Ontario land which later produced gold. In 1900 he married, took a supervisory job with a Toronto rubber company, and, aided by the gold mine money, settled into comfortable domesticity. For the next twenty years, while living in the midst of Toronto society, he wrote and published several books. He became even more prolific after moving to England, following a stint in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War I.
He and his wife lived in England for many years but returned to Canada before World War II. During the war, he wrote radio scripts for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. He won the Governor General’s Award in 1941 for his work. Sullivan died in England on August 6, 1947.
Although many of Sullivan’s novels may be classified as romances, their actual storylines range from mysteries and thriller material to adventures in the northern wilderness. Other frequent themes are the social contributions of the entrepreneur—Sullivan greatly admired those with vision and ambition—and the deeds of “manly men” who exemplified Anglo-Saxon virtues such as stoicism and persistence. Quite popular in its day, his fiction and poetry are hard to find today. They bear the stamp of a belief system which shaped the world prior to the mid-twentieth century. A listing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume ninety-two: Canadian Writers, 1890-1920 (1990), gives a good overview of his life and work.