Brown, CHARLES BROCKDEN

Brown, CHARLES BROCKDEN, an American novelist, of Quaker ancestry, was born at Philadelphia, January 17, 1771. After abortive studies in law he adopted literature as a profession, the first American to do so. Wieland (1798), the earliest of his fictions, was followed in 1799 by Ormund, or the Secret Witness, in which the character of Constantia Dudley was greatly admired by Shelley. Other novels were: Arthur Mervyn, or Memoirs of the Year 1793—the fatal year of yellow-fever in Philadelphia; Edgar Huntly, or the Adventures of a Sleep-walker (1801); Clara Howard (1801); and Jane Talbot (1804). He died of consumption, February 22, 1810. Brown had great imaginative and psychological ingenuity. He invents incidents and analyses feelings with remarkable subtlety, but his success is marred by lack of reality and extravagance. As a novelist he owed much to Godwin. A Life of Brown by W. Dunlap was prefixed to the edition of his novels in 7 vols. (Boston, 1827); there is another edition in 6 vols. (Philadelphia, 1857); re-issued, 1887. See Life by W. H. Preseott (1834).