Robert Montgomery Bird

Robert Montgomery Bird 1806-54, American playwright and novelist, b. New Castle, Del., M.D. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1827. He wrote several prizewinning verse plays for the actor Edwin Forrest , notably The Gladiator (1831) and The Broker of Bogota (1834). A financial misunderstanding led to a break between the two friends, and Forrest refused to release the copyrights he claimed to hold for the plays. Bird then wrote prose fiction, publishing the first of his popular romances set in Mexico, Calavar (1834), followed by a sequel, The Infidel (1835). Nick of the Woods (1837), his most popular novel, drew on his travels through America. In contrast to James Fenimore Cooper , Bird depicted the Native American as violent and debased. His romances, although complicated in plot, are dramatic and contain vivid character portrayals.

Bibliography: See biography by his wife, M. M. Bird (1945).

Bird, Robert Montgomery (1806–54), American playwright, by profession a doctor. He first came into prominence when in 1831 Edwin Forrest appeared as Spartacus in his romantic tragedy The Gladiator. It was an immediate success, and Forrest selected it for his first appearance at Drury Lane in 1836, continuing to act in it until his retirement in 1872. It was seen on the stage as late as 1892. Bird wrote two more plays for Forrest, Oralloossa (1832) and a domestic drama, The Broker of Bogota (1834), and revised for him Stone's Metamora. All three were popular and frequently revived, but owing to the chaotic state of the copyright laws Bird made no money from them, and withdrew from the theatre to seek a livelihood elsewhere.

Bird, Robert Montgomery (1806–54), playwright. Born into a well‐to‐do New Castle, Delaware, family, he lived with relatives when his father died and attended Germantown Academy and then the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. He had often written poetry, but while at medical school or soon thereafter turned to playwriting. Such works as the farce News of the Night; or, A Trip to Niagara, the tragic romance The Cowled Lover, the Gothic horror piece Caridorf; or, The Avenger, and the comedy of manners 'Twas All for the Best; or, 'Tis a Notion, and The City Looking Glass: A Philadelphia Comedy were strongly influenced by classic writers of the past, but none were produced in his lifetime. In 1830 Bird submitted Pelopidas; or, The Fall of the Polemarchs to one of Edwin Forrest's playwriting contests and the drama about the Theban revolt against the Spartans won first prize but was not produced. The actor was far more receptive to the author's next play, The Gladiator (1831), which was an immediate success and remained one of Forrest's most popular offerings. In 1832 Forrest produced his Oralloossa, concerned with the assassination of Pizarro, and two years later mounted his best play, The Broker of Bogota. Bird also revised Metamora for the actor, but shortly thereafter had a falling out with him when Forrest refused to pay several thousand dollars due him. Discouraged, he abandoned the theatre and turned to writing novels, one of which, Nick of the Woods; or, The Jibbenainosay, was dramatized by Louisa Medina in 1838 and long remained a stage favorite. From 1841 to 1843 he taught at the Philadelphia Medical College and then became editor of the North American and United States Gazette. Arthur Hobson Quinn has written: “Had he lived in a time when the American playwright received fair treatment, it is not easy to put a limit to his possible achievements. For he had a rare sense of dramatic effect, a power to visualize historic scenes and characters, to seize the spirit of the past out of the mass of facts and, in a few lines, to fuse those facts into life.” Biography: The Life and Dramatic Works of Robert Montgomery Bird, Clement E. Foust, 1919.