John (Novelist) Bowling

Very little biographical information about this author appears to survive. The Victorian fiction database At the Circulating Library lists John Bowling with unknown birth and death dates, which suggests he is now known mainly through his books rather than through a well-recorded public life.

The surviving record links him to at least two late-19th-century novels. Brailsford: A Tale of West Riding Life was published in 1887, and The Last of the Vikings identifies Bowling on its title page as the author of Brailsford, showing that he wrote both regional fiction and historical adventure.

The Last of the Vikings, the work most likely to reach modern listeners, is a historical novel set around the Norman Conquest of England. Its setting, conflict, and old-fashioned storytelling style give a good sense of the kind of vigorous popular fiction that circulated in the late Victorian period.