Born in Port Glasgow in 1834, James Thomson was the son of a merchant seaman who suffered a paralytic stroke in 1840. His sister died from the measles caught from Thomson when a small child and his mother died two years after they moved to London. Thomson was then sent to the Royal Caledonian Asylum for the children of Scottish servicemen where he was educated. His education continued at the Royal Military Asylum in Chelsea and from there he joined the army as a schoolmaster. When he was posted to Ireland, he met Charles Bradlaugh, the owner and editor of the National Reformer, which Thomson would soon contribute to. After he was expelled from the army for his incessant sessions of drinking, he returned to London and began his career in journalism and writing. For a short time he was a war correspondent in Spain for The Secularist until the lack of newsworthy material meant he was recalled home.

Thomson wrote under the pseudonym ‘B.V.’ (Bysshe Vanolis) out of his respect and admiration for Shelley and the German romantic writer Novalis. Writing for the National Reformer, Thomson translated Leopardi and Heine, as well as contributing his own poetry. His major work, The City of the Dreadful Night, was first published in instalments in the National Reformer in 1874 and in book form in 1880. It received some critical praise from George Eliot and George Meredith, and Herman Melville described it as ‘a modern Book of Job’, but generally, reviewers found its strong strand of atheism too pessimistic.

Later writings included Essays and Phantasies (1881) and Satires and Profanities (1884) but it was The City of Dreadful Night which was to be his most important and lasting work. Thomson is unique in his representation of the alienation of the individual and the isolation caused by loss of faith in industrial society.

The addiction to alcohol that had plagued Thomson all his life finally sent him to hospital where he died of an internal haemorrhage, homeless and in poverty in 1882. It is only posthumously that Thomson has been recognised as one of the most important and rebellious voices in the nineteenth century.