Charles Brockden Brown has often been called the earliest American novelist; but today his books are very rarely read. All of them are romantic and weird, with incidents bordering on the supernatural. They are typical of the kind of novel general at the time Brown lived.

He was born on January 17, 1771, in Philadelphia. His parents were Quakers. As a boy his health was bad, and since he was not able to join with other boys in outdoor sports he spent most of his time in study. His principal amusement was the invention of ideal architectural designs, planned on the most extensive and elaborate scale. Later this bent for construction developed into schemes for ideal commonwealths. Still later it showed itself in the elaborate plots of his novels.

Brown planned in the early part of his life to study law; but his constitution was too feeble for this arduous work. He had his share of the youthful dreams of great literary conquests. He planned a great epic on the discovery of America, with Columbus as his hero; another with the adventures of Pizarro for the subject; and still another upon the conquests of Cortes. However, as with the case of many great dreams, they were given up.

When he was still a boy he wrote a romance called “Carsol,” which was not published, however, until after his death. The next thing he wrote was an essay on the question of women’s rights and liberties. This question was already becoming an important one in England, where William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft were publishing their writings. Brown was much influenced by the works of both.

Although Brown’s books make heavy reading, yet his companionships were of the liveliest. It was said that no man ever had truer friends or loved these friends better. One of his closest friends was Dr. Eli Smith, a literary man. It was through him that Brown was introduced into the Friendly Club of New York City, where he met many other workers in the literary field. And it was under their influence that he produced his first, important work.

This was a novel published in 1798, called “Wieland, or the Transformation.” A mystery, seemingly inexplicable, is solved as a case of ventriloquism, which at that time was just beginning to be understood thoroughly. His next book was “Arthur Mervyn,” remarkable for its description of the epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia. “Edgar Huntley,” a romance rich in local color, followed this. An effective use is made of somnambulism, and in it Brown anticipates James Fenimore Cooper’s introduction of the American Indian into fiction.

The novelist then wrote two novels dealing with ordinary life; but they proved to be failures. Then he began to compile a general system of geography, to edit a periodical, and to write political pamphlets; but all the time his health was failing. On February 22, 1810, he died of tuberculosis.

His biographer, William Dunlap, who was the novelist’s friend, says that Brown was the purest and most amiable of men, due perhaps to his Quaker education. His manner was at times a little stiff and formal; but in spite of this he was deeply loved by his friends.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 4, No. 6, SERIAL No. 106
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

American Pioneer Prose Writers