A journalist and playwright, Harrison Owen worked on the Geelong Advertiser and was a prolific contributor of poems and articles to the Bulletin from 1912 to1919. He later worked for the Melbourne Herald as drama critic and author of the 'Peerybingle Papers', a regular section containing verse and prose. Soon after, he took over as author of the Herald's 'Under the Clocks' column. In 1915 he co-founded, with Louis Esson and Vance Palmer (qq.v.), the nationalist Australian Authors' and Writers' Guild.
Harrison Owen moved to London in 1920, where he joined the Daily Sketch from 1921 to1932, and until 1940 also produced a weekly feature for John Bull. He wrote several plays in London during that time. 'The Gentleman in Waiting' (1925) had mixed reviews, but 'The Happy Husband' (1927) played subsequently in New York, Paris and Vienna, and was filmed as Uneasy Virtue (1931). 'Doctor Pygmalion' (1932) also had productions in Melbourne, Sydney and Amsterdam following its London season. Owen later published a handbook on playwriting, The Playwright's Craft (1940).
After returning to Melbourne in 1940, Owen worked for the Sun-News Pictorial as a leader-writer and the author of a Saturday column, 'Merely my Prejudice'. Although he retired in 1955, he subsequently published a series of articles, 'Down memory lane', in the Melbourne Herald in 1957. He died of cerebro-vascular disease.
