author
Charles Goff Thomson
Best known for Terry: A Tale of the Hill People, this early 20th-century writer drew on a remarkably varied life that included veterinary work, wildlife conservation, and national park leadership. His background gives his fiction an unusual sense of place and lived experience.
1 Audiobook
Terry A Tale of the Hill People
by Charles Goff Thomson
About the author
Born in Little Falls, New York, in 1883, Charles Goff Thomson trained as a veterinarian at Cornell before taking on work in the Philippines, where he served in animal-disease control and later held conservation posts. He eventually joined the U.S. National Park Service and went on to lead both Crater Lake National Park and Yosemite National Park.
Alongside that public-service career, he wrote Terry: A Tale of the Hill People, the book for which he is most often remembered as an author. Because so much of his life was spent in scientific, conservation, and park work, his writing stands out for coming from someone who knew remote landscapes and practical field life firsthand.
Thomson died in 1937 while serving as superintendent of Yosemite. Though he is not widely known today as a literary figure, his work remains of interest to readers who enjoy fiction shaped by real-world experience and an older sense of adventure.