Arthur Mervyn

By Charles Brockden Brown

Settle in for a cozy night of reading with this gothic classic from Charles Brockden Brown. The tale follows protagonist Arthur Mervyn through a hellishly difficult period in his life, marred by illness, tragedy, mistakes, and a thorny romantic entanglement. Will Mervyn emerge from this period with his faculties intact, or will he plunge further into the despair that surrounds him?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheba Blake Publishing
• Release date: Jul 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9789635276196

Charles Brockden Brown

Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) was an American novelist and historian. Born to a family of Quakers in Philadelphia, Brown studied as a lawyer before embarking on a literary career. Alongside his work as a successful author of novels, short stories, essays, and poetry, Brown was a well-regarded editor and public intellectual. He was heavily influenced by British radicals of the French Revolutionary period, including Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and became an important figure both in the developing American literary scene and for such writers as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. His style exhibits a profound understanding of Gothic fiction and radical democratic politics, and his works incorporate elements of sentimental fiction, the captivity narrative, and epistolary form in their composition. Although he was far from the only writer working in early America, his critical acclaim and popular success certainly make him one of the most important. Brown’s brief but productive career earned the admiration of Walter Scott, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, all of whom he inspired and influenced.

Reviews for Arthur Mervyn

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Arthur Mervyn is the story of a young man of about 18 as he makes his way in the world during the perilous plague year of 1793. While reading this book, at first I thought the main narrator, Arthur Mervyn himself, is an unreliable storyteller and something of a scoundrel, then, in the second part, he matures and discovers charity and love. The heavy eighteenth-century prose makes this somewhat of a slog to read, but the reader's careful attention is rewarded by a tender story of growing up in difficult times.

[markbstephenson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Set in Philadelphia and Baltimore and written in an antique, stately and flowery style this novel surprised me by being very readable, interesting and even touching. Was the great American novel already written before the 19th century ever turned?