author
Sylvanus Stall
1847–1915
Best known for a hugely popular series of moral and sex-education books, this Lutheran pastor wrote in a direct, practical style aimed at young readers, couples, and families. His work captures a revealing slice of late 19th- and early 20th-century American advice literature.
2 Audiobooks
With the Children on Sundays Through Eye-Gate and Ear-Gate into the City of Child-Soul
by Sylvanus Stall
What a Young Husband Ought to Know
by Sylvanus Stall
About the author
Born in 1847 and dying in 1915, he was an American Lutheran minister, editor, and author whose writing reached a wide audience beyond the church. He studied at Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg and at the Lutheran Theological Seminary there, and later served congregations in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
He became especially well known for What a Young Boy Ought to Know (1897) and the many related volumes that followed. These books mixed religious teaching, health advice, and moral instruction, and they made him one of the most recognizable popular writers in that genre.
Alongside his books, he also worked in religious publishing, including editorial roles connected with Lutheran periodicals and yearbooks. Today, he is remembered less as a literary stylist than as a significant figure in American pastoral and advice writing, with books that reflect the social attitudes and anxieties of his era.