Ross, Ronald
Entry updated 7 July 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1857-1932) Indian-born medical doctor, physiologist and author, mostly in UK from the age of eight, brother of Charles Ross; he is of sf interest for The Child of Ocean (1889), a Robinsonade whose focus on the Pastoral upbringing of an initially voiceless child casts an Edenic light on the Island at the centre of the tale, though mythopoeic speculations about the malign inmost nature of malaria darken the scene. The Revels of Orsera: A Mediæval Romance (1920) is fantasy remarkable for its defensive valorization of the figure of the Hero. Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome (1995) contains a fantasticated portrait of Ross as the victim and perpetrator of a search for Immortality.
In 1902 Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine (see Medicine) for his research into the link between the mosquito and malaria; he was knighted in 1911. [JC]
Sir Ronald Ross
born Almora, Northwestern Provinces, British India: 13 May 1857
died London: 16 September 1932
works (highly selected)
- The Child of Ocean (London: Remington and Company, 1889) [hb/uncredited]
- The Revels of Orsera: A Mediæval Romance (London: John Murray, 1920) [hb/]
collections and stories
- Fables (Liverpool, England: Henry Young and Sons, 1907) [poetry: coll: chap: narrative poems: hb/nonpictorial]
links
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