“ At the garrison at Ballincollig, near Cork, he encountered the one brief happiness of his life: he fell passionately in love with, and was in turn as ardently loved by, the daughter of the armourer-sergeant of a regiment in the garrison, a girl of very exceptional beauty and cultivated mind. ”

“ On his return to England he continued to write in the Secularist and the National Reformer, under the initials “B.V.” [1] In 1875 he severed his connexion with the National Reformer, owing to a disagreement with its editor; henceforth his chief source of income (1875–1881) was from the monthly periodical known as Cope’s Tobacco Plant. Chiefly through the exertions of his friend and admirer, Bertram Dobell, Thomson’s best-known book, The City of Dreadful Night, and other Poems, was published in April 1880, and at once attracted wide attention ”