William Hill Brown
William
Hill Brown, (b. November 1765, Boston—d.
Sept. 2, 1793, Murfreesboro, N.C.,
U.S.), novelist and dramatist whose
anonymously published The Power of
Sympathy, or the Triumph of Nature
Founded in Truth (1789) is considered
the first American novel. An epistolary
novel about tragic, incestuous love, it
followed the sentimental style developed
by Samuel Richardson; its popularity
began a flood of sentimental novels.
The son
of the Boston clockmaker who made the
timepiece in Old South Church, Boston,
Brown wrote the romantic tale “Harriot,
or the Domestic Reconciliation” (1789),
which was published in the first issue
of Massachusetts Magazine, and the play
West Point Preserved (1797), a tragedy
about the death of a Revolutionary spy.
He also wrote a series of verse fables,
a comedy in West Indies style
(Penelope), essays, and a short second
novel about incest and seduction, Ira
and Isabella (published posthumously,
1807). Brown went south to study law and
died shortly thereafter.
