Alec John Dawson (1872 - 3 February 1951), generally known as A J. Dawson (pseudonyms Major Dawson, Howard Kerr, Nicholas Freydon) was an English author, traveler 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). 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.