author
James Hutton
1818–1893
A 19th-century writer with a wide range of interests, he published books on Central Asia, India, missionary work in the South Pacific, and historical correspondence. His surviving record is sparse, but his bibliography suggests a curious, well-read author drawn to history, travel, and empire.
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About the author
James Hutton was an author who lived from 1818 to 1893. Library and catalog records confirm him as the writer of Central Asia: from the Aryan to the Cossack (1875), and other surviving works show a similarly broad range of subjects, including Missionary Life in the Southern Seas (1874) and A Popular Account of the Thugs and Dacoits.
Those titles suggest a Victorian writer interested in distant places, world history, and the movement of ideas and people across the British Empire. He also appears as the editor of Selections from the letters and correspondence of Sir James Bland Burges (1885), which points to an additional interest in historical documents and biography.
Reliable biographical detail beyond his dates is limited in the sources available here, so it is safest to remember him mainly through his books: readable, ambitious nonfiction works aimed at introducing unfamiliar regions and subjects to English-language readers of the 19th century.