St John Hankin, one of the most interesting writers of the Edwardian New Drama, was born in Southampton in 1869 and educated at Malvern School and Oxford. He married Florence Routledge and went to India as a journalist but, having contracted malaria, he returned to London in 1895. He became drama critic for

The Times

and also wrote for

Punch,

where he made his mark with a series of comic sequels of famous plays, including Robertson's

Caste

and Ibsen's

A Doll's House.

These were published in book form as

Mr Punch's Dramatic Sequels

(1901) and

Lost Masterpieces

(1904). His theatrical interests and his admiration of the work of Bernard Shaw took him onto the council of the Stage Society, and to his first play,

The Two Mr Wetherbys

, which was produced by the Society in 1903. He contributed to…

697 words

Citation: Chothia, Jean. "St John Hankin". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1970, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1970 St John Hankin 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.