Author: Lofland, John
Biography:
Lofland, John (1798-1849: WBIS)
"The Milford Bard" was born in Milford DE, the son of Isaac Lofland, a merchant, and his third wife Cynthia Virden. He was a keen reader of literature, though a reluctant student in other subjects; he began composing poetry when he was 12. He attended the University of Pennsylvania for three years, intending to become a doctor, but he was expelled and left without qualifications. (He is nevertheless sometimes referred to as "Dr." Lofland.) After an early disappointment in love, he remained a bachelor. He contributed extensively to periodicals in Philadelphia (including the Saturday Evening Post) and then later in Baltimore, where he lived from 1838 to 1846, and in Wilmington (1846-9), where he died and is buried alongside one of his sisters. In Wilmington, he edited a literary journal, The Blue Hen's Chicken. He was an opium addict for 20 years. A friend in publishing, John Murphy, brought him freelance work. Murphy was also the publisher of a collected edition of Lofland's work--a selection over 550 pages long--produced with a memoir by Lofland's friend J. N. McJilton in 1853. The memoir includes striking accounts by Lofland himself of some of the hallucinations he experienced as an addict. (J. N. McJilton, ed., The Poetical and Prose Writings of Dr. John Lofland, the Milford Bard [1853]; W. M. Leonard, The Life of John Lofland [1894])