Charles Brockden Brown (1771 - 1810)

Charles Brockden Brown

Charles Brockden Brown was an American writer, historian, and editor.

Brown took up literary endeavors early in life. In 1798, his first mystical and psychological novel, Wieland, was published. Brown also wrote the novels Ormond (1799), Edgar Huntley (1799), and Arthur Merwin (1799-1800).

Brown's works interweave fiction, history, fantasy, psychology, and liberal politics. Brown is considered the father of the American novel. His American-style Gothic novels pioneered and paved the way for two of the greatest early American writers, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Charles Brown also wrote a great deal of journalism on political, educational, and historical topics.