In a career that lasted only fifteen years before being cut short by madness, Gilbert Cannan wrote twenty-seven books, at least fourteen plays, and many articles, short stories, and columns of dramatic criticism. He also translated from German, French, and, in collaboration, Russian. Overwork was both his escape from an innate loneliness and, eventually, the final blow to his sanity.

Gilbert Eric Cannan was born in Manchester on 25 June 1884 to Henry Cannan, a shipping clerk, and Violet Wright Cannan. His grandfather James Cannan, a bank clerk and drama critic for The Manchester City News, was an early influence. James Cannan's wife, Agnes, was the daughter of John Storrs Smith, author of a book on Mirabeau and two volumes of poetry, as well as cofounder with James Cannan, Edwin Waugh, and Francis Epinasse of a literary coterie known as the Shandean Club. A puritanical churchgoer, Agnes Cannan disapproved of...