Timothy Shay Arthur

Author Code: ATSA

Arthur moved to Baltimore, Maryland, when he was about eight and he received a little education, was apprenticed to a trade, and was a clerk for several years. In 1833 he visited the west as the agent of a bank. Meanwhile, he educated himself by reading and study, and when he returned to Baltimore he became editor of The Athenaeum. In 1841 he moved to Philadelphia, where he lived until his death, and where, in 1852, he founded Arthur's Home Magazine, of which he was editor. He was a voluminous writer of tales of domestic life, and also prepared, with the aid of W. H. Carpenter, a series of histories of the different states of the union. Arthur's works exceeds one hundred volumes. Among his books are Lights and Shadows of Real Life, Tales for Rich and Poor (6 vols.), Library for the Household (12 vols.), Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, Cast Adrift, and Steps to Heaven. His stories all have some moral end in view, many of them being devoted to the support of the temperance cause. Although not possessing great merit as literature, his books have been widely read and were very popular. His book, The Good Time Coming (1855), was accused of "verging on spiritualism and Swedenborgianism."