James Thomson III

James Thomson III was a descendant of the poet James Thomson. Like James Thomson's other descendants, James Thomson III was affected by the fallout of a ghost cluster, and The Book of the War noted that he was "only occasionally found to have existed".

In his Journals, published in 1905, he related an event during which, visiting another location, he had a vision of being in a mysterious shadow version of London with red skies and insubstantial, darkened buildings which he thought to be the ghosts of buildings which had burnt down. This extract was used in The Book of the War to preface its entry on the Eleven-Day Empire, which matched this description. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

Behind the scenes

• In the real world, James Thomson died without children.
• James Thomson III's description of the Eleven-Day Empire mirrors his supposed grandfather's bleak description of London in the famous real-world poem The City of Dreadful Night.