T. F. (Thomas Firminger) Thiselton-Dyer

Born on July 25, 1848, and dead on July 14, 1923, he was an English clergyman and popular nonfiction writer. He was educated at King's College School and at Pembroke College, Oxford, and served in several church posts, including curacies in London and a period as vicar of St Paul's, Penzance.

Alongside his clerical work, he became known for accessible books on folklore, customs, plants, Shakespearean superstition, ghosts, and family history. Titles associated with him include English Folk-lore, The Folk-lore of Plants, Folk-lore of Shakespeare, and Ghost World, all written in a style aimed at general readers rather than specialists.

He is best remembered as one of those Victorian writers who helped bring folklore to a broad audience. Instead of treating old beliefs as dry scholarship, he gathered them into readable, curious, and often entertaining surveys that still appeal to listeners interested in superstition, tradition, and the texture of everyday life in earlier England.