A. J. Dawson

Alec John Dawson (1872 - 3 February 1951), generally known as A. J. Dawson (pseudonyms Captain Dawson, Major Dawson, Howard Kerr, Nicholas Freydon) was an English author, traveller and novelist. During World War I he attained the rank of Major, and was awarded the MBE and Croix de Guerre in recognition of his work as a military propagandist. Dawson published over thirty books, the one best remembered today probably being the animal adventure story Finn the Wolfhound (1908).

Early life and career

Dawson was born in Wandsworth, England, the third son of Edward (1839-1906) and Sarah Ann Dawson née Hill (1843-1911). His father worked as a collector for the local gas company. He left school early to become an apprentice in the Merchant Navy, but jumped ship in Australia after a couple of voyages. For the next few years he was something of a drifter, working for a spell as a farmer and then joining the staff of a Melbourne newspaper. Some five years later he decided to become an author, travelling for several years around Australasia, India, Ceylon, Mauritius, South America, West Africa, Morocco and Europe.

He used the pen-name Howard Kerr for his first published novel, Leeway (1896). Further publications as A.J. Dawson soon followed: two collections of short stories (Mere Sentiment and In the Bight of Benin) and two novels (God's Foundling and Middle Greyness) in 1897 alone. Dawson's early fiction draws on his own upbringing and travels, literary critic John Sutherland singles out for praise Daniel Whyte (1899), about his younger adventures in Australasia, and The Story of Ronald Kestrel (1900), dealing with his later career as a writer. African Nights Entertainments (1900), another collection of short stories, suggests a debt to Rudyard Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills.