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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: John Cockburn Thomson

Author: John Cockburn Thomson (1834–1860)

Alternate Name(s): Philip Wharton (pseudonym)

Biography: John Cockburn Thomson was born in 1834 in London, the son of the eminent physician Anthony Todd Thomson (1778–1849) and the author Katherine Thomson (1797–1862). He was eduated in Bonn and Trinity College, Oxford, where he earned a B.A. in 1857. At university, he studied sanskrit and translated the Bhagava-Ghita in 1855. Together with his mother under the pseudonyms "Philip and Grace Wharton," he co-authored a number of nonfictional works such as The Wits and Beaux of Society (1860) and The Queens of Society (1860). Thomson died suddenly by drowning at Tenby on 26 May 1860. The accidental death proved a shock to his mother from which she never quite recovered. His only novel, Heart or Head (1864), was published posthumously.

Author Tags:

References: DNB (Anthony Todd Thomson, Henry William Thomson, Katharine Thomson)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Heart or Head.  2 vol.  London: C. J. Skeet, 1864.