BROWN, CHARLES BROCKDEN ( 1771-1810) . An American novelist and editor. He was born in Philadelphia, January 17, 1771. As a boy he was very precocious and at the age of 11 he entered the school of Robert Proud, an historian and noted teacher, where he remained for five years, and by zealous application to his books frequently overtaxed his naturally weak consti tution. He never after enjoyed perfect health. On leaving school he studied law, but soon chose literature as his profession. He wrote much verse and practiced his pen in numerous essays for a belles-lettres club, of which he was the leading spirit. He now drew gradually away from the Quaker modes of life and thought, and yielded to the influence of the current French philosophy, and to the social teachings of Godwin and other English radicals. Growing out of touch with his Philadelphia surroundings. he moved to New York, and in 1797 published Aleugn: A Dialogue om the Rights of Women: but its radical teaching on divorce attracted little attention. The next year he issued his first novel Wieland, or the Transformation, a story of ventriloquism. This was his third attempt at fiction. and parts of an earlier novel, Sky Walk, were afterwards in corporated in Belga,. Huntley. Both of these early novels are tales of terror, improbable, sometimes horrible, hut with scenes of great power. though as radically morbid as the work of his master. Godwin. During the next three years he published four other novels—Arthur Mrrryn, Ormond. Edgar Huntley. and Clara noleard--establishing his rank as the first and unrivaled American novelist, until the appear ance of Cooper's Spy (1821). During this period of feverish activity, Brown attempted to estab lish a Monthly Magazine and American Re riew, which did not outlive its second year. He
was more successful in 1803, with the Literary Magazine and American Register (1803-08), and in 1806 began to issue a semi-annual Ameri can Register, which continued till his death, from consumption. February 22, 1810. Be pub lished also another novel, Jane Talbot did some translating. and wrote several political pamphlets, of which the most noteworthy is an Address to Congress on the Utility and Justice of Restrictions on Foreign cominCrec. Death found him engaged in completing a System of General Geography and a Treat is on Rome Dur ing the Age of the Antonines. Brown made early use of American frontier life. Thus he suggests Cooper, while his morbid psychology has a tinge of Poe, and seems precursive of Haw thorne. Like the English novelists of his school, his work is improbable, sentimental, and unreal. In construction it shows marks of haste, but it never fails to bear witness to native genius-. There is a weird intensity of power in Wieland, and the description given in Arthur llerryn and Ormond of the yellow-fever epidemics in Phila delphia is generally acknowledged to be mas terly. Prescott. Margaret Fuller, and others have praised him highly. hut he has not held his popularity. He should he remembered as the first really professional American man of letters. His novels were collected in seven volumes (1827), with a Life by Dunlap, originally pub lished in two volumes (1815). These volumes contain many minor writings of Brown. The works were reedited in six volumes (Philadel phia, 1857), and again by McKay (1887). For his biography, consult also: Prescott. Biograph ical and Critical Miscellanies (Philadelphia, 1867).