Thomas Dunn English, an American author, born in Philadelphia, June 29, 1819. He received the degree of M. D. from the university of Pennsylvania in 1839, and was called to the bar in 1842. He has been connected with journals in New York and elsewhere, edited magazines, and taken part at various times in politics. He is the author of several novels, mostly pseudonymous, and more than 20 successful dramas. Only three of the novels were acknowledged: "Walter Woolfe" (1844), "MDCCCXLIV., or the Power of the S. F.," a political expose, and "Ambrose Fecit" (1867); and of the dramas only one, "The Mormons," which has been printed and is still occasionally represented. Dr. English is best known by his " Ben Bolt," a popular song, which appeared in the New York "Mirror" in 1842, and his " Gallows-Goers," a rough but vigorous poem, of which hundreds of thousands of copies were circulated during the agitation of the question of capital punishment from 1845 to 1850. He printed a collection of his poems in New York in 1855, but suppressed its publication. In 1856 he established his residence in New Jersey, near New York, where he has since practised as a physician. He has represented his district in the New Jersey legislature.

Of late years his literary work has been confined mainly to a series of poems illustrating the revolutionary history and local dialects of the United States, which have appeared in magazines.