George Lippard

George Lippard
Lippard, c. 1850
Born	(1822-04-10)April 10, 1822 West Nantmeal Township, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	February 9, 1854(1854-02-09) (aged 31) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Resting place	Lawnview Memorial Park, Rockledge, Pennsylvania
Occupation	Novelist journalist social reformer
Literary movement	Romanticism
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George Lippard (April 10, 1822 – February 9, 1854) was a 19th-century American novelist, journalist, playwright, social activist, and labor organizer. He was a popular author in antebellum America.^[1]

A friend of Edgar Allan Poe, Lippard advocated a socialist political philosophy and sought justice for the working class in his writings. He founded a secret benevolent society, Brotherhood of the Union, investing in it all the trappings of a religion; the society, a precursor to labor organizations, survived until 1994. He authored two principal kinds of stories: Gothic tales about the immorality, horror, vice, and debauchery of large cities, such as The Monks of Monk Hall (1844), reprinted as The Quaker City (1844); and historical fiction of a type called romances, such as Blanche of Brandywine (1846), Legends of Mexico (1847), and the popular Legends of the Revolution (1847). Both kinds of stories, sensational and immensely popular when written, are mostly forgotten today.

Lippard died at the age of 31 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 9, 1854.