author
Calvin Elliott
Known today mainly for a single forceful early-20th-century book, this little-known writer took on the ethics of lending and argued that usury harmed ordinary people. His work blends religious conviction with economic criticism in a way that still feels surprisingly direct.
1 Audiobook
Usury : a scriptural, ethical and economic view
by Calvin Elliott
About the author
Calvin Elliott is an obscure American author remembered chiefly for Usury: A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View, published in 1902. Library and public-domain records consistently link his name to that book, and modern readers can still find it through major digital archives.
In that work, he examines lending at interest through biblical, moral, and economic arguments. The book is openly critical of usury and presents the subject as both a social and spiritual problem, especially in its effects on poorer borrowers.
Very little biographical information about Elliott is readily confirmed in reliable online sources, so most of what survives publicly is his writing rather than the details of his life. That makes him one of those authors whose reputation rests almost entirely on one passionate, purposeful book.