The City of Dreadful Night

James Thomson (1834 -1882) published under the pseudonym Bysshe Vanolis. He was a Scottish Victorian poet famous primarily for the long poem The City of Dreadful Night (1874) which was an expression of bleak pessimism in a dehumanized, uncaring urban environment. The City of Dreadful Night came about from his struggle with alcoholism and chronic depression and the Increasing isolation from friends and society in general. He even became hostile towards his best friend Bradaugh. Nineteen months before his death, The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems was published to favorable reviews, but it was to late to stop the downward spiral of Thomson's life.