Charles Brockden Brown
Charles Brockden Brown, (b. Jan. 17,
1771, Philadelphia—d. Feb. 22, 1810,
Philadelphia), writer known as the
“father of the American novel.” His
gothic romances in American settings
were the first in a tradition adapted by
two of the greatest early American
authors, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel
Hawthorne. Brown called himself a
“story-telling moralist.” Although his
writings exploit horror and terror, they
reflect a thoughtful liberalism.
The son
of Quaker parents, Brown was of delicate
constitution, and he early devoted
himself to study. He was apprenticed to
a Philadelphia lawyer in 1787, but he
had a strong interest in writing that
led him to help found a literary
society. In 1793 he gave up the law
entirely to pursue a literary career in
Philadelphia and New York City.
His
first novel, Wieland (1798), a minor
masterpiece in American fiction, shows
the ease with which mental balance is
lost when the test of common sense is
not applied to strange experiences. The
story concerns Theodore Wieland, whose
father died by spontaneous combustion
apparently for violating a vow to God.
The younger Wieland, also a religious
enthusiast seeking direct communication
with divinity, misguidedly assumes that
a ventriloquist’s utterances are
supernatural in origin; driven insane,
he acts upon the prompting of this
“inner voice” and murders his wife and
children. When apprised of his error, he
kills himself. Brown also wrote Ormond
(1799), Edgar Huntly (1799), and Arthur
Mervyn (1799–1800), as well as a number
of less well known novels and a book on
the rights of women. Despite this
literary output, Brown engaged in trade
throughout his life to support his
family.
