author

Thomas Alfred Spalding

b. 1850

A barrister, public servant, and wide-ranging Victorian man of letters, he wrote on everything from Shakespearean superstition to British politics and naval history. His work blends legal training with a lively curiosity about the past.

1 Audiobook

Elizabethan Demonology An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in the Existence of Devils, and the Powers Possessed By Them, as It Was Generally Held during the Period of the Reformation, and the Times Immediately Succeeding; with Special Reference to Shakspere and His Works

Elizabethan Demonology An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in the Existence of Devils, and the Powers Possessed By Them, as It Was Generally Held during the Period of the Reformation, and the Times Immediately Succeeding; with Special Reference to Shakspere and His Works

by Thomas Alfred Spalding

About the author

Born in 1850, Thomas Alfred Spalding was a British barrister and author whose books ranged across history, biography, politics, education, and literary study. Contemporary reference material places him among the legal profession, and library records connect his name with a substantial body of late 19th- and early 20th-century nonfiction.

He is best remembered today for Elizabethan Demonology (1880), a study of beliefs about devils and witchcraft in the age of Shakespeare. Other works attributed to him include The House of Lords, Federation and Empire, The Work of the London School Board, and a life of Vice-Admiral Richard Badiley, showing how comfortably he moved between literary scholarship, public affairs, and historical biography.

Available sources also describe him as a barrister-at-law and note his connection with the New Shakspere Society. A confirmed modern portrait was not readily available from the sources checked, so no profile image is included here.