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Author: Coffin, Robert Stevenson

Biography:

Coffin, Robert Stevenson (1797-1827: WBIS)

pseudonym The Boston Bard

The son of Ebenezer Coffin, a clergyman, he was born in Brunswick ME. He trained as a printer and worked at his trade in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. In the War of 1812 he served as a sailor and was imprisoned on a British frigate. Much of his verse appeared first in newspapers under the pseudonym "the Boston Bard," and when he was found sick and destitute in New York in 1826, other writers joined a successful campaign to send him home to his family in Massachusetts. In 1825 he had published an extravagant autobiography (The Life of the Boston Bard, written by Himself) dedicated to one of those writers, Daniel Bryan (q.v.). (Appleton; Duyckinck)

 

Other Names:

  • R. S. Coffin
  • Robert S. Coffin
 

Books written (6):

Boston: printed by Farnham and Badger, 1817
Philadelphia: printed for the author by J. H. Cunningham, 1818
Philadelphia: printed by George Goodman, 1819
New York: printed by Alexander Ming, Jr., 1823
Mount Pleasant NY: Stephen Marshall Roscoe, 1825
Providence RI: Smith and Parmenter, 1826