Sutton Vane is remembered for one notable dramatic work, Outward Bound, that received a great deal of critical attention and substantial runs in London and New York in 1923 and 1924. In 1938 the play was revived in New York for another long run. Very popular during the 1920s and 1930s, Outward Bound was accorded numerous amateur and university productions on both sides of the Atlantic.

Vane, christened Vane Hunt Sutton Vane (at one point he hyphenated Sutton Vane), was the son of Sutton Vane, a prolific writer of late-Victorian melodramas. It was natural for young Vane to be interested, quite early, in a theatrical career as an actor and dramatist. Some confusion remains about when the father's playwriting career ended and the son's began because the elder Vane was still writing at the time that the younger had his first plays staged. It is more than likely that the usually...