Charles Brockden Brown

Born Jan. 17, 1771, in Philadelphia; died there Feb. 22, 1810. American writer.

Brown was one of the forerunners of romanticism in the literature of the USA. He was the son of a Quaker merchant and studied jurisprudence. In the dialogue Alcuin (1798), which was written under the influence of W. Godwin, Brown came out in defense of equal rights for women. In the novel Wieland, or the Transformation (1798), he told about an American family that fell victim to an adventurer. The triumph of justice over the forces of evil is the main idea in the novels Arthur Mervyn (vols. 1-2, 1799-1800) and Ormond (1799). In the novel Edgar Huntly (1799), Brown was the first to examine the life of the Indians.