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{{Short description|Scottish journalist, poet, and translator (1834–1882)}}
{{About||the 18th-century poet of the same name|James Thomson (poet, born 1700)|the weaver poet of the same name|James Thomson (weaver poet)|other people with the same name|James Thomson (disambiguation){{!}}James Thomson}}
{{More citations needed|date=April 2026}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = James Thomson
| image = James Thomson (B. V.), photo portrait, 1860.jpg
| caption = Thomson in 1860
| pen_name = Bysshe Vanolis
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1834|11|23|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Port Glasgow]], Scotland
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1882|6|3|1834|11|23|df=y}}
| death_place = [[London]], England
| education = [[Royal Military Asylum]]
| period = 1863–1882
| notable_works = ''[[The City of Dreadful Night]]''
| signature = Signature of James Thomson (B.V.).svg
}}

'''James Thomson''' (23 November 1834 – 3 June 1882), who wrote under the name '''Bysshe Vanolis''', was a Scottish journalist, poet, and translator. He is remembered for ''[[The City of Dreadful Night]]'' (1874; 1880), a poetic allegory of urban suffering and despair. His pen name derives from the names of the poets [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]] and [[Novalis]]; both strong influences on him as a writer.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=James Thomson ('B.V.')|url=https://www.henrysalt.co.uk/critic/james-thomson-bv/|website=Henry S. Salt Society|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref> Thomson's essays were written mainly for ''[[National Reformer]]'', ''[[Secular Review]]'', and ''Cope's Tobacco Plant''. His longer poems include "The Doom of a City" (1854) in four parts, "Vane's Story" (1865), and the Orientalist ballad "Weddah and Om-El-Bonain". He admired and translated the works of the Italian poet [[Giacomo Leopardi]]<ref>Giacomo Leopardi, ''Essays, Dialogues, and Thoughts'' (George Routledge, 1905)</ref> and [[Heinrich Heine]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Byron|first=Kenneth Hugh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SIsbDgAAQBAJ|title=The Pessimism of James Thomson (B. V.) in Relation to His Times|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|year=2015|isbn=978-3-11-165603-8|pages=106|language=en}}</ref> In the title of his biography of Thomson, [[Bertram Dobell]] dubbed him "the Laureate of Pessimism".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=James Thomson {{!}} Scottish poet [1834–1882]|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Thomson-Scottish-poet-1834-1882|last=Tikkanen|first=Amy|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Moore|first=Bryan L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0e45DwAAQBAJ|title=Ecological Literature and the Critique of Anthropocentrism|publisher=Springer|year=2017|isbn=978-3-319-60738-2|location=107|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Citation|last=Miller|first=John|chapter=Creatures on the "Night-Side of Nature": James Thomson's Melancholy Ethics|date=2017|chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60219-0_10|title=Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture: Contexts for Criticism|pages=189–211|editor-last=Mazzeno|editor-first=Laurence W.|series=Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature|place=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|language=en|doi=10.1057/978-1-137-60219-0_10|isbn=978-1-137-60219-0|editor2-last=Morrison|editor2-first=Ronald D.|chapter-url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==Life==
Thomson was born in [[Port Glasgow]], [[Scotland]], and, at the age of eight (after his sister died and his father suffered a stroke), he was sent to London where he was raised in an orphanage, the [[Royal Caledonian Asylum]] on Chalk Road (later Caledonian Road after the asylum) near Holloway. At around this time, his mother died.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

He was trained as an [[Corps of Army Schoolmasters|army schoolmaster]] at the [[Royal Military Asylum]] in [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]] and served in [[Ireland]], where in 1851, at the age of 17, he made the acquaintance of 18-year-old [[Charles Bradlaugh]], who was already known as a [[Freethought|freethinker]], having published his first [[atheist]] pamphlet a year earlier.<ref>{{cite book
| last = American Heritage Dictionary
| title = The Riverside Dictionary of Biography
| publisher = Houghton Mifflin Reference Books
| year = 2004
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4zxQ5dr61X8C
| isbn = 978-0-618-49337-1
| page = 785}}</ref>

More than a decade later, Thomson quit the military and moved to [[London]], where he worked as a clerk. He remained in communication with Bradlaugh, who was by now issuing his own weekly ''[[National Reformer]]'', a "publication for the working man". For the remaining 19 years of his life, starting in 1863, Thomson submitted stories, essays and poems to the ''National Reformer'' and other periodicals. From 1866 onwards he lived in a single room, first in Pimlico and then in Bloomsbury.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

Thomson's most famous literary work, the poem ''The City of Dreadful Night'', was composed from January 1870 to October 1873.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schaefer |first=William David |url=http://archive.org/details/jamesthomsonbvbe0000scha |title=James Thomson, B.V., beyond "The city." -- |date=1965 |publisher=Berkeley : University of California Press |others=Internet Archive}}</ref> It was first published in serial form in the ''National Reformer'' in the spring of 1874. The poem was reprinted in ''The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems'' (1880) and elicited encouraging and complimentary reviews from a number of critics.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

Thomson died in London at the age of 47, from a broken blood vessel in his bowel,<ref>{{Cite web|title=BOOK REVIEW / Sad days in the City of Dreadful Night: 'Places of the Mind: The Life and Work of James Thomson ('B V') – Tom Leonard: Cape, 25 pounds|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/book-review-sad-days-in-the-city-of-dreadful-night-places-of-the-mind-the-life-and-work-of-james-1473030.html|last=Imlah|first=Mick|date=1993-02-14|website=The Independent|language=en|access-date=2020-05-22}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Saintsbury|first=George|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31698|title=A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780–1895)|publisher=The Macmillan Company|year=1906|location=London|pages=297|language=en}}</ref> and was buried in the east side of [[Highgate Cemetery]] in the grave of his friend, the freethinker, [[Austin Holyoake]]. The inscription on his grave states that he was born in 1831, not 1834.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

==Legacy==
In 1889, seven years after Thomson's death, [[Henry Stephens Salt]] published the first biography of Thomson, with a selection of writings, ''The Life of James Thomson ("B.V.")''.<ref name=":0" /> In 1910, [[Bertram Dobell]] published a second biography, ''The Laureate of Pessimism: a Sketch of the Life of James Thomson''.<ref name=":2" /> In 1993, [[Tom Leonard (poet)|Tom Leonard]]'s biographical study ''Places of the Mind: The Life and Work of James Thomson ('B. V.')'' of Thomson was published by the London publisher Jonathan Cape.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Leonard|first=Tom|title=Places of the Mind: Life and Work of James Thomson|date=1993|isbn=978-0-224-03118-9|location=Cape|language=English|oclc=953042819}}</ref> In recent years, Thomson's poems have rarely been anthologised, although the autobiographical "Insomnia" and "Sunday at Hampstead" have been well-regarded and include some striking passages.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025}}

==Selected publications==
* ''[[iarchive:cityofdreadfulni00thomrich|The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems]]'' (1880)
* ''[[iarchive:vanesstoryweddah00thom|Vane's Story, Weddah and Om-el-Bonain, and Other Poems]]'' (1881)
* ''[[iarchive:essaysandphanta00thomgoog|Essays and Phantasies]]'' (1881)
* [[iarchive:satiresandprofa00thomgoog|''Satires and Profanities'']] (1884; with preface by [[George William Foote]])
* [[iarchive:voicefromnileoth00thomuoft|''A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems'']] (1884; with memoir by Bertram Dobell)
* ''[[iarchive:shelleypoemwitho00thomuoft|Shelley, a Poem: With Other Writings Relating to Shelley, to Which Is Added An Essay on the Poems of William Blake]]'' (1884; with preface by Bertram Dobell)
* [[iarchive:selectionsfromor00thomuoft/page/n15/mode/2up|''Selections from Original Contributions by James Thomson to "Cope's Tobacco Plant."'']] (1889; with preface by Walter Lewin)
* ''[[iarchive:poemsessaysandf00thomgoog|Poems, Essays and Fragments]]'' (1892; edited, with preface, by [[J. M. Robertson]])
* ''The Poetical Works of James Thomson: The City of Dreadful Night, Vane's story, Weddah & Om-el-Bonain, Voice from the Nile & Poetical Remains'', [[iarchive:poeticalworksja00dobegoog|Vol. I]] / [[iarchive:poeticalworksofj02thom 0|Vol. II]] (1895; edited, with memoir, by Bertram Dobell)
* [[iarchive:biographicaland00thomgoog|''Biographical and Critical Studies'']] (1896; with preface by Bertram Dobell)
* ''[[iarchive:waltwhitmanmanpo00thomuoft|Walt Whitman: The Man and the Poet]]'' (1910; with introduction by Bertram Dobell)
* ''Poems and Some Letters'' Ed. Anne Ridler. London: Centaur Press, 1963.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thomson |first=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fBQutQEACAAJ |title=Poems and Some Letters |date=1963 |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |language=en}}</ref>
* ''The City of Dreadful Night.'' Introduction by Edwin Morgan. London: Canongate, 1993.
* ''Novalis and the Poets of Pessimism: With an English Translation by James Thomson ("B.V.") of Hymns to Night'', edited by Simon Reynolds, Norwich, Norfolk: Michael Russell, 1995.
* ''The Complete Poems''. Ed. A. J. Spatz. Arlington, VA: Charles & Wonder, 2012.
* ''The City of Dreadful Night and Other Writings''. Seattle: Sublunary Editions, 2022.
* ''The City of Dreadful Night''. Illustrations by Shannon Cleere, afterword by Robert Lashley. Seattle: Entre Rios, 2023.

== Gallery ==
<gallery mode="packed" heights="150px">
File:Selections from Original Contributions by James Thomson to "Cope's Tobacco Plant." frontispiece.jpg|Sketch portrait of Thomson
File:James Thomson, photo portrait, 1869.jpg|Portrait, taken in 1869
File:James Thomson, photo portrait, c. 1881.jpg|James Thomson, photo portrait, c. 1881
File:Grave of Victorian poet James Thompson in Highgate Cemetery.jpg|Thomson's grave in [[Highgate Cemetery]]
</gallery>

==References==
{{Reflist}}
'''Attribution:'''
* {{DNB|wstitle=Thomson, James (1834-1882)}}

==Further reading==
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Thomson, James (poet, 1834-1882)|display=Thomson, James|volume=26|pages=873–874}}
* {{Cite book|last=Dobell|first=Bertram|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924013564111|title=The Laureate of Pessimism: A Sketch of the Life, and Character of James Thomson ("BV")|publisher=Bertram Dobell|year=1910|location=London}}
* {{Cite book|last=Salt|first=Henry S.|url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Salt_-_The_life_of_James_Thomson_%281914%29.pdf|title=The Life of James Thomson ("B. V.")|publisher=Watts & Co.|year=1914|edition=revised|location=London}}
* {{Cite book|last=Schaefer|first=William David|url=https://archive.org/details/jamesthomsonbvbe0000scha|title=James Thomson, B.V., Beyond "The City"|publisher=University of California Press|year=1965|location=Berkeley}}
* {{Cite book|last=Leonard|first=Tom|title=Places of the Mind: Life and Work of James Thomson|publisher=Jonathan Cape|year=1993|location=London|isbn=978-0-224-03118-9}}
* {{cite web|url=http://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-a-prose/james-thomson-bv.html|last=Leonard|first=Tom|title=James Thomson ("BV"): ''The City of Dreadful Night''|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090906003520/http://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-a-prose/james-thomson-bv.html|archive-date=2009-09-06|year=2004}}
* {{Cite book|last=Angeletti|first=Giola|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z2wfAQAAIAAJ|title=Eccentric Scotland- Three Victorian Poets. James Thomson ('B.V.'), John Davidson and James Young Geddes|publisher=Clueb|year=2004|location=Bologna|isbn=978-88-491-2120-9 }}

==External links==
{{Sister project links|display=James Thomson|wikt=no|n=no|author=yes|b=no|v=no}}
* {{Gutenberg author|id=569|name=James Thomson}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20220920035848/http://vasthead.com/Thomson/index.html James Thomson Poetry Works] at vasthead (archived)
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=James Thomson|birth=1834|death=1882|sopt=t}}
* {{Librivox author|id=3259}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomson, James}}
[[Category:1834 births|Thomson, James (BV)]]
[[Category:1882 deaths|Thomson, James (BV)]]
[[Category:Burials at Highgate Cemetery]]
[[Category:19th-century British essayists]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish poets]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish male poets]]
[[Category:19th-century pseudonymous writers]]
[[Category:Deaths from gastrointestinal hemorrhage]]
[[Category:People from Port Glasgow]]
[[Category:Royal Army Educational Corps soldiers]]
[[Category:Scottish atheists]]
[[Category:19th-century Scottish translators]]
[[Category:Victorian poets]]

James Thomson (poet, born 1834) - Revision history

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