Thomas Dunn English

English was born in Philadelphia on June 29, 1819.Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: 203. {{ISBN|0-19-503186-5}} He attended the Friends Academy in Burlington, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1839. His graduation thesis was on phrenology.Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 349. {{ISBN|0-8018-5730-9}} He studied law, and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1842. He was a founding member of the American Numismatic Society in 1858.{{cite journal |last=L.H.L. |date=January 1909 |title=Obituary: Asher D. Atkinson |jstor=43587999 |journal=American Journal of Numismatics |volume=43 |issue=3 |page=139}} By then, his career as a journalist and writer was already well underway.

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English wrote scores of poems and plays as well as stories and novels, but his reputation as a writer was built on the ballad "Ben Bolt" (1843).Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906: 293. Written for Nathaniel Parker Willis's New-York Mirror, it was turned into a song and became very popular, with a ship, steamboat and racehorse soon named in its honor.Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906: 294. American opera singer Eleonora de Cisneros recorded this on an Edison Blue Amberol cylinder in 1912.{{YouTube|SXvk2Se60Hk|Edison Blue Amberol cylinder recording of Ben Bolt (1912)}}[https://archive.org/details/EleonoraDeCisneros-BenBolt1912 Eleonora de Cisneros Oh! Don't you remember at Internet Archive]

Other works include the temperance novel Walter Woolfe, or the Doom of the Drinker in 1842 and the political romance MDCCCXLII. or the Power of the S. F. in 1846.Griswold, Rufus Wilmot (ed). The Poets and Poetry of America. Philadelphia: Parry and McMillan, 1855: 576. He was the founding editor of the monthly The Aristidean in New York,Moss, Sidney P. Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. Southern Illinois University Press, 1969: 176. which printed its first issue in February 1845.Thomas, Dwight and David K. Jackson. The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe 1809–1849. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987: 501. {{ISBN|0-8161-8734-7}}. English later edited several other journals, including the humorous magazine The John Donkey, American Review: A Whig Journal and Sartain's Magazine.

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English was a friend of author Edgar Allan Poe, but the two fell out amidst a public scandal involving Poe and the writers Frances Sargent Osgood and Elizabeth F. Ellet. After suggestions that her letters to Poe contained indiscreet material, Ellet asked her brother to demand the return of the letters. Poe, who claimed he had already returned the letters, asked English for a pistol to defend himself from Ellet's infuriated brother.Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992: 191. English was skeptical of Poe's story and suggested that he end the scandal by retracting the "unfounded charges" against Ellet.Moss, Sidney P. Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. Southern Illinois University Press, 1969: 220. The angry Poe pushed English into a fistfight, during which his face was cut by English's ring.Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991: 291. {{ISBN|0-06-092331-8}} Poe later claimed to have given English "a flogging which he will remember to the day of his death", though English denied it; either way, the fight ended their friendship and stoked further gossip about the scandal.

Later that year, Poe harshly criticized English's work as part of his "Literati of New York" series published in Godey's Lady's Book, referring to him as "a man without the commonest school education busying himself in attempts to instruct mankind in topics of literature".Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906: 296. The two had several confrontations, usually centered around literary caricatures of one another. One of English's letters which was published in the July 23, 1846, issue of the New York MirrorSova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. Checkmark Books, 2001: 81, 83, 91. caused Poe to successfully sue the editors of the Mirror for libel.Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991: 312–313. {{ISBN|0-06-092331-8}} Poe was awarded $225.06 as well as an additional $101.42 in court costs.Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991: 328. {{ISBN|0-06-092331-8}} That year English published a novel called 1844, or, The Power of the S.F. Its plot made references to secret societies, and ultimately was about revenge. It included a character named Marmaduke Hammerhead, the famous author of The Black Crow, who uses phrases like "Nevermore" and "lost Lenore." The clear parody of Poe was portrayed as a drunkard, liar, and domestic abuser. Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado" was written as a response, using very specific references to English's novel.Rust, Richard D. "Punish with Impunity: Poe, Thomas Dunn English and 'The Cask of Amontillado'" in The Edgar Allan Poe Review, Vol. II, Issue 2 – Fall, 2001, St. Joseph's University Another Poe revenge tale, "Hop-Frog", may also reference English.Benton, Richard P. "Friends and Enemies: Women in the Life of Edgar Allan Poe" as collected in Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe. Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1987: 16. Years later, in 1870, when English edited the magazine The Old Guard, founded by the Poe-defender Charles Chauncey Burr, he found occasion to publish both an anti-Poe article (June 1870) and an article defending Poe's greatest detractor Rufus Wilmot Griswold (October 1870).{{cite journal|last=Hubbell|first=Jay B.|title=Charles Chauncey Burr: Friend of Poe|journal=PMLA|year=1954|volume=69|issue=4|pages=833–40|doi=10.2307/459933|jstor=459933}}

English's first foray into politics was as an advocate of the annexation of Texas.Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906: 297. {{ISBN|1-932109-45-5}} He moved to present-day Logan, West Virginia, in 1852, to New York City in 1857, and to Newark, New Jersey, a year later. He was a member of the New Jersey General Assembly in 1863 and 1864.[http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=E000188 Thomas Dunn English profile], Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed August 13, 2007.

English was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses, serving in office from March 4, 1891, to March 3, 1895. He was chairman of the Committee on Alcoholic Liquor Traffic (Fifty-third Congress). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress.

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After leaving Congress, English resumed his former literary pursuits in Newark. In 1896, he published Reminisces of Poe, in which he hinted at scandals without specificity. He did, however, defend Poe against rumors of drug use: "Had Poe the opium habit when I knew him (before 1846) I should both as a physician and a man of observation, have discovered it during his frequent visits to my rooms, my visits at his house, and our meetings elsewhere – I saw no signs of it and believe the charge to be a baseless slander".Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 351. {{ISBN|0-8018-5730-9}}

English died April 1, 1902, and was interred in Fairmount Cemetery in Newark. His monument notes him as "Author of Ben Bolt".

• Zephaniah Doolittle (1838) (as Montmorency Sneerlip Snags Esq.){{Cite book|others=William Evans Burton (editor)|title=Gentleman's Magazine|date=1838|publisher=Chas. Alexander|pages=187 ff}}
• Walter Woolfe, or the Doom of the Drinker (1842)
• Ben Bolt (1843)
• MDCCCXLII. or the Power of the S. F. (1846)
• Gasology: A Satire (1877)
• Reminiscences of Poe (1896)

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• {{CongBio|E000188}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Thomas Dunn English}}
• {{Librivox author |id=3001}}
• [http://www.poetry-archive.com/e/english_thomas_dunn_bibliography.html Bibliography of Thomas Dunn English] at Poetry-Archive.com
• [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=990DE1DB1230E733A25751C0A9629C946397D6CF Thomas Dunn English obituary from The New York Times]

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| after= Richard W. Parker

| years=March 4, 1891 – March 3, 1895

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Category:1819 births

Category:1902 deaths

Category:Burials at Fairmount Cemetery (Newark, New Jersey)

Category:Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New Jersey

Category:Democratic Party members of the New Jersey General Assembly

Category:Politicians from Newark, New Jersey

Category:Politicians from Philadelphia

Category:Writers from Philadelphia

Category:Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni

Category:19th-century New Jersey politicians

Category:19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives

Category:People from Logan, West Virginia