author
John Wilson Ross
1818–1887
Born in St. Vincent and educated in London, this 19th-century writer moved between the Caribbean and Britain before settling into a literary life. He is best remembered for a provocative study arguing that Tacitus's Annals was a Renaissance forgery.
1 Audiobook
Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century
by John Wilson Ross
About the author
Born in 1818 at Belmont, St. Vincent, he was the son of John Pemberton Ross and a grandson of the botanist Alexander Anderson. He was educated at King's College London, spent part of his early career in British Guiana as secretary to the vendue-master of Berbice, and later returned to England, where he turned to literary work.
Ross wrote on history, criticism, and poetry. His best-known book is Tacitus and Bracciolini: The Annals Forged in the XVth Century (1878), a controversial work first published anonymously. Other records of his writing life point to later verse as well, including Gleams & Glances in Verse.
He died in 1887. Archival records also show letters he wrote to Blackwood's in the 1880s, suggesting an active connection to the literary world late in life.