It is true that in the field of science fiction, which accounts for only a tiny fraction of his prodigious output, Allen's contribution has never been entirely forgotten. Yet his importance in the formation of the tradition of British scientific romance still remains to be fairly acknowledged.
Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen was born on 24 February 1848 at Alwington, near Kingston, Ontario, the second and only surviving son of Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant clergyman of Irish background, and Charlotte Catherine Ann Grant, daughter of the fifth baron of Longueuil, Quebec, whose family originated in Blairfindie, Scotland. The family moved to New Haven, Connecticut, when Allen was about thirteen, where he was taught by a tutor from Yale. He also spent time at the Collge Impriale in Dieppe, France, and at King Edwards School, Birmingham, England. In 1867 he was elected to a postmastership at Merton College, Oxford University, and graduated from there with a B.A. in classics in 1871. While still an undergraduate he married, but his first wife, an invalid, died soon thereafter.
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