Charles Brockden Brown publishes Ormond and Edgar Huntley.

Ormond and Edgar Huntley are Brocken Brown's second and third novels. (His first was Wieland, published in 1798.) Brockden Brown is the first notable American novelist, and is credited with creating the American Gothic novel. His novels blend the styles and elements of William Godwin, Samuel Richardson, and Ann Radcliffe into complicated and often confusing plots. Unlike these prototypical writers, however, Brockden Brown incorporates much more radical political thought into his novels, in addition to the more standard psychological exploration of characters.

The first of Brockden Brown's 1799 novels is Ormond, a seduction novel. Ormond is the seducer. He is an educated, willfull, European radical, and these qualities allow him to quite effectively conceal his power over others. In the course of the novel, he attempts to seduce Constantia Dudley, a character who often portrays how highly Brockden Brown values education in women. Constantia is an immensely practical character, and it is this very practicality that allows her to evade the advances of Ormond. However, in a classic Brockden Brown-esque twist, it is this same practicality that attracts Ormond to Constantia and makes her so suceptible to his advances.

In Edgar Huntley , Brockden Brown employs many of the same Gothic effects as in Ormond. In this novel most psychological of Brockden Brown's novels, Edgar is marked by good intentions marred by obsessive behavior. His sleepwalking tendencies (mirrored by those of his supposed friend Clithero Edny), produce many unexpected turns in the novel's complex plot. In addition to being psychologically introspective, Edgar Huntley is notable for its introduction of the savage Indian to the genre of American literature.

Source: Encyclopedia of American Literature

Category: Literature, entry number 437

Entered by Elizabeth on 07 July 2004 at 10:42 AM