Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen (1848 - 1899) was a science writer and novelist, pioneer in science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, which includes a mention of Allen, also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London...