David Alec Wilson

Born in 1864, David Alec Wilson was a Scottish writer, lawyer, and civil servant. Reliable reference sources describe him as a graduate of the University of Glasgow who served in the Indian Civil Service from 1886 to 1911, much of that time in Burma, before building a reputation as an author.

He is chiefly remembered for his studies of Thomas Carlyle, including multi-volume biographical work and earlier books defending Carlyle against other interpretations. Alongside that serious literary scholarship, Wilson also wrote more popular and adventurous pieces shaped by his years in South Asia.

That range helps explain why his books still catch readers in different ways. Some come to him for his careful Victorian literary biography; others for collections such as Anecdotes of Big Cats and Other Beasts, where his firsthand knowledge of life in India and Burma gives the stories their color and energy. He died in 1933.