His major novels, written between 1798 and 1801, include Wieland; or, The Transformation (1798), often considered the first American Gothic novel, a disturbing tale of religious mania and murder; Ormond (1799), a story of seduction and conspiracy set against a yellow fever epidemic; Arthur Mervyn (1799–1800), which vividly depicts the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of 1793; and Edgar Huntly (1799), notable for its American frontier setting, sleepwalking protagonist, and encounters with Native Americans. He later published Clara Howard (1801) and Jane Talbot (1801). Brown also edited several literary magazines and produced political pamphlets and historical writings. His psychologically complex fiction deeply influenced later American writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and James Fenimore Cooper.
Charles Brocden Brown
Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) was an American novelist, editor, and historian, widely regarded as the first professional writer in the United States. Born in Philadelphia, he abandoned a career in law to devote himself entirely to literature at a time when most American authors wrote as amateurs. Influenced by British Gothic fiction and Enlightenment thinkers such as William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Brown adapted the Gothic novel to American settings, exploring themes of madness, religious fanaticism, deception, and social upheaval.