author
William Stevens Balch
1806–1887
A 19th-century Universalist minister, teacher, and writer, he moved easily between religion, journalism, and storytelling. He is especially remembered for early imaginative fiction such as The Magician Faustus and for a long career of preaching, editing, and public debate.
1 Audiobook
Lectures on Language, as Particularly Connected with English Grammar.
by William Stevens Balch
About the author
Born in Andover, Vermont, on April 13, 1806, William Stevens Balch became a prominent Universalist preacher whose work also stretched into teaching, journalism, politics, and historical writing. Sources describe him as an independent-minded figure within Universalism, someone who helped train future ministers and supported formal theological education.
Alongside his religious career, he wrote books that reached beyond theology. He is noted for imaginative works including The Magician Faustus, which has earned him a small place in the history of early speculative fiction, as well as for Sunday-school and devotional writing used by Universalist readers.
Balch died in Elgin, Illinois, on December 25, 1887. A full-length biography of his life and work appeared soon after his death, suggesting that contemporaries saw him as more than a local minister: he was remembered as a public speaker, organizer, editor, and author with a career that spanned more than sixty years.