Henry Fanshawe Tozer: A “Missing Person” in Historical Geography?

This fragment of an ongoing research project into the historical relations of geography and classics introduces a minor but significant scholar, Henry Fanshawe Tozer (1829–1916). Tozer’s lectures on the geography of ancient Greece as part of an effort to modernize Oxford University’s curriculum; his exploratory travels in the Balkans, the Aegean, and Asia Minor that resulted in three classic volumes; his book of selections from Strabo as an alternative to standard classical texts; and his well-regarded History of Ancient Geography entitle him to consideration from geographers. Most of his books have been reprinted (from 75 to 135 years after their initial publication), and he was regarded in his own time as a geographer. Yet few Anglo-American geographers today know his work. His selection for the Dictionary of National Biography’s “Missing Persons” volume in 1993 and his omission from more recent surveys, such as those in the 2003 British Academy volume on British geography, suggest how much more we have yet to learn about the nineteenth-century roots of our discipline.