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 ''The City of Dreadful Night'' is a long poem by the Scottish poet James "B.V." Thomson, written between 1870 and 1873, and published in the ''National Reformer'' in 1874, then, in 1880, in a book entitled ''The City of Dreadful Night and Othe ...

'' (1874; 1880), a poetic allegory of urban suffering and despair. His pen name derives from the names of the poets Shelley and

Novalis Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (; ), was a German nobility, German aristocrat and polymath, who was a poet, novelist, philosopher and Mysticism, mystic. He is regarded as an inf ...

; both strong influences on him as a writer. Thomson's essays were written mainly for ''

National Reformer The ''National Reformer'' was a secularist weekly publication in 19th-century Britain (1860–1893), noted for providing a longstanding "strong, radical voice" in its time, advocating atheism. Under the editorship of Charles Bradlaugh for the maj ...

'', ''

Secular Review ''Secular Review'' (1876–1907) was a freethought/secularist weekly publication in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain that appeared under a variety of names. It represented a "relatively moderate style of Secularism," more open to old ...

'', 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 Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. Considered the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century and one of the greatest a ...

and

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...

. In the title of his biography of Thomson, Bertram Dobell dubbed him "the Laureate of Pessimism".

Life

Thomson was born in

Port Glasgow Port Glasgow (, ) is the second-largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19,426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16,617 persons. The most recent census in 2011 s ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, 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. He was trained as an army schoolmaster at the Royal Military Asylum in Chelsea and served in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

, where in 1851, at the age of 17, he made the acquaintance of 18-year-old

Charles Bradlaugh Charles Bradlaugh (; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851. In 1880, Br ...

, who was already known as a

freethinker Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an unorthodox attitude or belief. A freethinker holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and should instead be reached by other meth ...

, having published his first

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

pamphlet a year earlier. More than a decade later, Thomson quit the military and moved to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, where he worked as a clerk. He remained in communication with Bradlaugh, who was by now issuing his own weekly ''

'', 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. Thomson's most famous literary work, the poem ''The City of Dreadful Night'', was composed from January 1870 to October 1873. 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. Thomson died in London at the age of 47, from a broken blood vessel in his bowel, and was buried in the east side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in North London, England, designed by architect Stephen Geary. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East sides. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for so ...

in the grave of his friend, the freethinker, Austin Holyoake. The inscription on his grave states that he was born in 1831, not 1834.

Legacy

In 1889, seven years after Thomson's death,

Henry Stephens Salt Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt (; 20 September 1851 – 19 April 1939) was a British writer and social reformer. He campaigned for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a n ...

published the first biography of Thomson, with a selection of writings, ''The Life of James Thomson ("B.V.")''. In 1910, Bertram Dobell published a second biography, ''The Laureate of Pessimism: a Sketch of the Life of James Thomson''. In 1993, 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. 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.

Selected publications

* '' The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems'' (1880) *'' Vane's Story, Weddah and Om-el-Bonain, and Other Poems'' (1881) *'' Essays and Phantasies'' (1881) * ''Satires and Profanities'' (1884; with preface by George William Foote) * ''A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems'' (1884; with memoir by Bertram Dobell) *'' 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) * ''Selections from Original Contributions by James Thomson to "Cope's Tobacco Plant."'' (1889; with preface by Walter Lewin) *'' Poems, Essays and Fragments'' (1892; edited, with preface, by

J. M. Robertson John Mackinnon Robertson (14 November 1856 – 5 January 1933) was a prolific Scottish journalist, advocate of rationalism and secularism, and Liberal Member of Parliament for Tyneside from 1906 to 1918. Robertson was best known as an advoca ...

) *''The Poetical Works of James Thomson: The City of Dreadful Night, Vane's story, Weddah & Om-el-Bonain, Voice from the Nile & Poetical Remains'', Vol. I / Vol. II (1895; edited, with memoir, by Bertram Dobell) * ''Biographical and Critical Studies'' (1896; with preface by Bertram Dobell) *'' Walt Whitman: The Man and the Poet'' (1910; with introduction by Bertram Dobell) *''Poems and Some Letters'' Ed. Anne Ridler. London: Centaur Press, 1963. *''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

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

References

Attribution: *

External links