Charles Brockden Brown

"Edgar Huntly is the story of a young man who sleepwalks each night, a threat to himself and others, unable to control his baser passions. Set outside Philadelphia in 1787, the book becomes a metaphor for the founding of a new nation. Its characters face the problems confronted by the framers of the Constitution: how to harness the irrational, passionate aspects of man's nature without sacrificing individual liberty."--Back cover.

Mervyn begins to get sick, and fearing a forced trip to the hospital (a death trap), he decides to hide himself in the old Welbeck mansion. Welbeck leaves Mervyn to die, and Mervyn eventually wanders out into the street and collapses. Mervyn is, discovered by Dr. Stevens sitting on a bench. He is suffering from yellow fever, and since Dr. Stevens has pity on him, is, invited into the Stevens household.

Excerpt from Jane Talbot "I am very far from being a wise girl. So conscience whispers me, and, though vanity is eager to refute the charge, I must acknowledge that she is seldom successful. Conscience tells me it is folly, it is guilt, to wrap up my existence in one frail mortal; to employ all my thoughts, to lavish all my affections, upon one object; to dote upon a human being, who, as such, must be the heir of many frailties, and whom I know to...

Charles Brockden Brown was an American novelist, historian, and editor, who has been recognized as one of the first American novelists and an early proponent of the Gothic romance genre. Brown's works are a combination of his own Romantic imagination and Enlightenment ideals, and are often characterized by elements of the sensational and violent. His work also reflects an interest in the early feminist movement, and frequently draws on Enlightenment-era...