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About the Author
James Spilling (1825-1897) was born and raised in Ipswich, England.
His career was in the areas of bookselling, publishing, and newspaper
editing. Later in life he became known as an author of popular
Swedenborgian fiction and non-fiction books, of which The Evening and
The Morning is one of the best examples.
As a
young man, Spilling became a political radical and a religious
skeptic, studying the writings of Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and others.
He was one of the founders, and for a long time the leading spirit, of
a freethinking association called the Ipswich Utilitarian Society.
Having a strong mind and a spirit for aggressive debating, he was only
gradually won over to an eventual full acceptance of the spiritual and
Christian teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). He then became
an equally fervent speaker and writer in support of those teachings.
It
is from this personal life history that Spilling drew the outlines of
the main characters in The Evening and the Morning.
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