How could a glorious age of American history also give rise to the darkest of literary traditions, one that would inspire Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, and many other best-selling American writers?"
This study of the works of late eighteenth-century American Gothic author Charles Brockden Brown argues that Brown was a seminal figure in the development of four forms of Gothic fiction: the Frontier Gothic, the Urban Gothic, the Psychological Gothic, and the Female Gothic.
Often described as a "gothic novel," this is a classic American tale of mystery and murder with exciting and dramatic plot twists. Charles Brockden Brown is the most frequently studied and republished practitioner of the "early American novel," or the US novel between 1789 and roughly 1820. This volume contains a critical edition of Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly, the third of his novels to be published in 1799 and the first to deal with the American wilderness. The basis of the text is the first edition, printed and published by Hugh Maxwell in Philadelphia late in the year, but the "Fragment" printed independently in Brown's Monthly Magazine earlier in 1799 supplies some readings in Chapters 17-20. The Historical Essay, which follows the text, covers matters of composition, publication, historical background, and literary evaluation, and the Textual Essay discusses the transmission of the text, choice of copy-text, and editorial policy. A general textual statement for the entire edition appears in Volume I of the series.
Gale Researcher Guide for: Charles Brockden Brown and American Gothic is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.
many-layered and parlous cultural self." In close readings of Brown's Gothic novels, Christophersen traces the specific links between the texts and a society in which flux and revolutions of fortune are the rule rather than the exception. He examines Wieland in light of the factionalization that was peaking during 1798, when Brown was writing the book, and the religious anxieties of the Second Great Awakening that were just beginning to manifest themselves beneath the.