Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (February 24, 1848 – October 25, 1899) was a Canadian science writer and novelist, educated in England.

[1] Allen was born on Wolfe Island near Kingston, Canada West (known as Ontario after Confederation), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev.

After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works.

A 2007 book by Oliver Sacks cites with approval one of Allen's early articles, "Note-Deafness" (a description of what became known as amusia, published in 1878 in the learned journal Mind).

In Allen's many articles on flowers and on perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms, leading to a radically new vision of plant life that influenced H.G.

[7] On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica grew uneasy over the years.

[9] Allen's theory became well known and brief references to it appear in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud.

Allen's short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published December 1897 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption.

The illustrious Colonel Clay is a precursor of other gentleman rogue characters; he notably bears a strong resemblance to Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin, introduced some years later.