Bayle St. John began contributing to periodicals when only thirteen, and when twenty he wrote a series of papers for Fraser under the title De re vehiculari, or a Comic History of Chariots.
In Paris, he published Two Years in a Levantine Family (1850) and Views in the Oasis of Siwah (1850).
After a second visit to the East he published Village Life in Egypt (1852); Purple Tints of Paris; Characters and Manners in the New Empire (1854); The Louvre, or Biography of a Museum (1855); The Subalpine Kingdom, or Experiences and Studies in Savoy (1856); Travels of an Arab Merchant in the Soudan (1854); Maretimo, a Story of Adventure (1856); and Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon in the Reign of Louis XIV (four vols., 1857).
In 1858, Bayle St. John returned to England, suffering from ill health.
[4] He left a widow and two sons, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London.