author
Edward Clodd
1840–1930
A self-educated Victorian writer who helped bring evolution, folklore, and comparative religion to a wide general audience. Best known for making big ideas readable, he balanced a long banking career with a lively literary and scientific life.
3 Audiobooks
Pioneers of Evolution from Thales to Huxley With an Intermediate Chapter on the Causes of Arrest of the Movement
by Edward Clodd
The Story of the Alphabet
by Edward Clodd
Myths and Dreams
by Edward Clodd
About the author
Born in Margate on July 1, 1840, and raised partly in Suffolk, Edward Clodd left school young and moved to London as a teenager to work as a clerk. He later built a successful career at the London Joint Stock Bank, but outside work he became known as a writer and public thinker with a strong interest in science, mythology, and human culture.
Clodd was an early popularizer of evolutionary thought and wrote accessible books on the origins of the world, religion, and folklore. He also wrote about major intellectual figures including Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, and Herbert Spencer, helping ordinary readers engage with ideas that were reshaping Victorian debate.
He was closely connected with literary and scientific circles and played an important role in the Folklore Society. Friends and visitors gathered at his home in Aldeburgh, where he became known for his sociable nature as much as for his books. He died on March 16, 1930, leaving behind a body of work that reflects both curiosity and a gift for clear explanation.