Sir James Emerson Tennent was a Scottish politician, colonial official and traveller. A Hellenophile, in 1824 he had travelled to Greece where he met Lord Byron and on his return to Britain, published accounts of his travels. Between 1845 and 1850, Tennent served in the colonial government in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). While in Ceylon, he took the opportunity to travel the island and wrote extensively on its natural history. He published his account in 1859 under the title Ceylon: an account of the Island, with later editions receiving the new title Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon.