author
Timothy Williston
d. 1893
Known from a small but striking body of religious and anti-slavery writing, this 19th-century American author used plain, direct prose to argue moral questions that mattered deeply in his time. His surviving books suggest a writer interested in both Christian teaching and public conscience.
1 Audiobook
Three Prize Essays on American Slavery
by R. B. (Richard Bowers) Thurston, A. C. (Abraham Chittenden) Baldwin, Timothy Williston
About the author
Timothy Williston was an American religious writer active in the 19th century. Library and digital-book records identify him as having died in 1893, and they preserve a modest published legacy rather than a widely documented personal biography.
He is best known as one of the contributors to Liberty or Slavery; The Great National Question (1857), a collection of prize essays on American slavery. In that volume, his work appears alongside essays by R. B. Thurston and A. C. Baldwin, placing him within the religious anti-slavery debates of the years before the Civil War.
Another surviving work, Talks to My Bible Class (1875), points to a second side of his writing: practical Christian instruction aimed at everyday readers or students. Because readily available sources offer very little confirmed detail about his life beyond his publications and death year, his reputation today rests mainly on these books and the moral seriousness they reflect.