James Thomson (23 November 1834 – 3 June 1882), who wrote under the pseudonym Bysshe Vanolis, was a Scottish Victorian era poet famous primarily for the long poem The City of Dreadful Night (1874), an expression of bleak pessimism in a dehumanized, uncaring urban environment. Thomson's pseudonym derives from the names of the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Novalis. He is often distinguished from the earlier Scottish poet James Thomson by the letters B.V. after his name.

Thomson's poems rarely appear in modern anthologies, although the autobiographical "Insomnia" and "Mater Tenebrarum" are well-regarded and contain some striking passages. He admired and translated the works of the pessimistic Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), but his pessimism is considered to have been stronger than that of Leopardi. He is regarded as one of the bleakest Victorian poets.