author
John Foster
1770–1843
Best known as an English Baptist minister and essayist, he wrote with unusual moral intensity and became a respected voice in 19th-century religious and literary culture.
1 Audiobook
An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance
by John Foster
About the author
Born near Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1770, he was educated for the Baptist ministry at Bristol and served as a minister before turning increasingly to writing. He is commonly identified as John Foster (essayist), and reference sources describe him as both a preacher and a thoughtful prose writer.
His reputation rests largely on his essays and on his long association with the Eclectic Review, to which he contributed many articles. Readers of his time valued the seriousness of his style and his habit of wrestling with questions of character, religion, and public life.
He died in 1843. Although not as widely read now as some of his contemporaries, he remains of interest to readers drawn to reflective nonfiction, religious thought, and the history of English essay writing.