James Ridley

James Kenneth Ridley (1736–1765) was an English author educated at University College, Oxford.

Ridley wrote two novels: The History of James Lovegrove, Esquire (1761) and The Schemer, or the Universal Satirist, by that Great Philosopher Helter van Scelter (1763).

However, he is mainly remembered for his Oriental pastiche The Tales of the Genii, a set of stories based on those of the Arabian Nights.

That work, published in two volumes in 1764, was issued under the pseudonym "Sir Charles Morell", supposedly British Ambassador at Bombay.

In its own time and after, Ridley's book was compared to Samuel Johnson's Rasselas.