Robert Montgomery Bird(1803-1854) was born in Delaware and raised in Philadelphia. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated from its medical school in 1824. After practicing medicine for only a year, he started writing, eventually becoming the editor ofAmerican Monthly Magazine.After briefly suffering from mental illness and working in a number of various fields, he returned to medicine. He is best known for his plays,The Gladiator(1831) andThe Broker of Bogota(1834) and his novelsCalavar(1834),The Infidel(1835) andNick of the Woods(1837). Christopher Loobyholds an M.A. in American literature and history from Washington University, St. Louis and a Ph.D. from Columbia… University, New York. A former associate editor for The Library of America, he currently teaches English at UCLA.