author

Thomas Alfred Spalding

b. 1850

A Victorian barrister and man of letters, he wrote across an unusually wide range of subjects, from Shakespeare-era beliefs about demons to naval biography and public affairs. His best-known book, Elizabethan Demonology, shows a curious mind at work where literature, history, and folklore meet.

1 Audiobook

Elizabethan Demonology

Elizabethan Demonology

by Thomas Alfred Spalding

About the author

Born on October 12, 1850, Thomas Alfred Spalding was educated at University College London, earned an LL.B., and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1874. A later biographical notice also records that he served from November 1879 as private secretary to the chairman of the London School Board.

Spalding was more than a lawyer. Contemporary and library sources describe him as a barrister-at-law, honorary treasurer of the New Shakspere Society, and a prolific author whose books ranged over literary history, politics, biography, naval history, and fiction. His best-known work is Elizabethan Demonology (1880), a study of supernatural belief in the age of Shakespeare.

Catalog records linked to his name also show the breadth of his writing, including The House of Lords, A Life of Richard Badiley, Vice-Admiral of the Fleet, and The Work of the London School Board. A confirmed portrait was not readily available from reliable page images, so no profile image is included here.