Owen Oliver – A Short Story Compendium: 'You see different people have different ideas''

Joshua Albert Flynn was born in Sheerness, Kent, on 15th September 1863.

He was educated at private schools and later graduated from King's College, London.

His initial career was with the Civil Service where he thrived. A marriage to Ada Parkinson brought two sons and three daughters into their lives.

He worked in South Africa as a financial adviser to Lord Kitchener before stints at the Admiralty and the War Office. In 1916 he was appointed director-general of finance at the Ministry of Pensions. His stellar professional career brought him a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1910 and a knighthood in 1919.

His career in literature started late and is almost forgotten today. Although he wrote a handful of novels, he was well regarded as the author of short stories for children. But amongst the 250 stories he wrote and published in the leading periodicals and the magazines of the day his ambitions spread much wider. He was able to write across a number of genres. His humourous stories received particular praise as did his many science fiction stories, where undoubtedly his time in Government helped bring across a particular way of imparting information into the structure of narratives as normal everyday folk came up against terrifying and dystopian happenings.

Owen Oliver, died in Streatham, south London on 8th October 1933. He was 70.

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