author
John Wilson Ross
1818–1887
A 19th-century man of letters with roots in St. Vincent and a London education, he is best remembered for literary and historical writing that ranged from biography to classical controversy. His best-known work, Tacitus and Bracciolini, shows the argumentative, curious style that made him a distinctive Victorian author.
1 Audiobook
Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century
by John Wilson Ross
About the author
Born in 1818 at Belmont in St. Vincent, he was the son of John Pemberton Ross and a grandson, through his mother, of the botanist Alexander Anderson. He was educated in England at King's College London, a background that helped shape a career in writing and scholarship.
Ross wrote across several fields rather than staying in a single lane. He is associated with journalism and authorship in the 19th century, and he is now most often noticed for Tacitus and Bracciolini, a study first published anonymously in 1878 that argued a controversial case about the authorship of parts of Tacitus.
He died in 1887. Although he is not widely known today, his work still turns up in library catalogs and digital archives, especially wherever Victorian literary debate, classical scholarship, or unusual historical arguments are of interest.