author
R. A. (Robert Alexander) Douglas-Lithgow
1846–1917
An Irish-born physician and prolific writer, he moved easily between poetry, biography, and regional history. His books often blend a scholar’s curiosity with a storyteller’s feel for place, especially in his work on Nantucket and Native American names in New England.
1 Audiobook
The Nantucket Indians
by R. A. (Robert Alexander) Douglas-Lithgow
About the author
Born in Belfast in 1846, Robert Alexander Douglas-Lithgow was educated at the Diocesan School in Downpatrick and at Belfast Academical Institution. He trained and worked as a physician, later spending time in London before eventually settling in the United States.
Alongside his medical career, he built a wide-ranging literary life. Sources from library and author records connect him with poetry, biography, and historical writing, including Pet Moments (1877), The Life of John Critchley Prince, Dictionary of American-Indian Place and Proper Names in New England (1909), The Nantucket Indians (1911), and Nantucket: A History (1914).
That mix of interests helps explain why his work still feels distinctive: he wrote with the habits of a researcher, but he was drawn to vivid lives, local history, and the meanings hidden in names and places. He died in 1917.