- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Early Years, 1771–1795
- Later Years, 1795–1810
- <i>Wieland</i>; or, The Transformation of American Literary History
- <i>Ormond; or, The Secret Witness</i>
- <i>Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the Year 1793</i>
- On Felons and Fallacies: <i>Edgar Huntly</i>
- <i>Stephen Calvert</i>’s Unfinished Business
- <i>Clara Howard</i>: <i>in a Series of Letters</i>
- <i>Jane Talbot, a Novel</i>
- History, Romance, and the Novel
- <i>Historical Sketches</i>
- Political Pamphlets
- “Annals of Europe and America” and Brown’s Contribution to Early American Periodicals
- Letters
- Poetry
- Short Fiction
- Brown and the Woldwinites
- Brown and Women’s Rights
- Slavery, Abolition, and African Americans in Brown
- Brown’s Philadelphia Quaker Milieu
- Brown, the Illuminati, and the Public Sphere
- Brown, Empire, and Colonialism
- Brown and Physiology
- Brown and the Yellow Fever
- Brown and Sex
- Brown’s American Gothic
- Brown, Sensibility, and Sentimentalism
- Brown and the Novel in the Atlantic World
- Brown and Classicism
- Brown’s Studies in Literary Geography
- Brown, the Visual Arts, and Architecture
- Brown’s Literary Afterlife
- Brown’s Early Biographers and Reception, 1815–1940s
- Brown’s Later Biographers and Reception, 1949–2000s
- Brown Studies Now and in Transition
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
Charles Brockden Brown’s lifelong commitment to the principles of the Enlightenment is well reflected in his commitment to equal rights for women in education, marriage, and social standing and in his support for women’s economic independence. The strong women he created in his fiction have attracted the admiration of readers and writers over many generations, and his exploration of gender dynamics remains unsurpassed. This essay focuses on two fictional texts, Alcuin; A Dialogue (1798) and the novel Ormond; or, The Secret Witness (1800), in which the promises of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution for the transformation of gender as a social relation are critically examined, their limits tested, and their justice affirmed. Next to the well-known Ormond, the early Alcuin emerges as a masterpiece of social satire and sociological analysis.
Keywords: Charles Brockden Brown, women’s rights, women’s education, marriage, gender, masculinity, sexual politics, equality, Enlightenment, rhetorical strategy
Fritz Fleischmann is Professor of English at Babson College. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of six books and the author or coauthor of numerous scholarly articles about American literature and culture, entrepreneurship, college management, and organic farming. His publications about Charles Brockden Brown go back to 1982; his dissertation, “A Right View of the Subject”: Feminism in the Works of Charles Brockden Brown and John Neal, was published in 1983. The founding chair of the editorial board for the Charles Brockden Brown Electronic Archive and Scholarly Edition and the initiator of the Charles Brockden Brown Society, he also served as a consulting editor for Letters and Early Epistolary Writings (2013), Vol. 1 of the Bucknell Collected Writings edition.
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- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Early Years, 1771–1795
- Later Years, 1795–1810
- <i>Wieland</i>; or, The Transformation of American Literary History
- <i>Ormond; or, The Secret Witness</i>
- <i>Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the Year 1793</i>
- On Felons and Fallacies: <i>Edgar Huntly</i>
- <i>Stephen Calvert</i>’s Unfinished Business
- <i>Clara Howard</i>: <i>in a Series of Letters</i>
- <i>Jane Talbot, a Novel</i>
- History, Romance, and the Novel
- <i>Historical Sketches</i>
- Political Pamphlets
- “Annals of Europe and America” and Brown’s Contribution to Early American Periodicals
- Letters
- Poetry
- Short Fiction
- Brown and the Woldwinites
- Brown and Women’s Rights
- Slavery, Abolition, and African Americans in Brown
- Brown’s Philadelphia Quaker Milieu
- Brown, the Illuminati, and the Public Sphere
- Brown, Empire, and Colonialism
- Brown and Physiology
- Brown and the Yellow Fever
- Brown and Sex
- Brown’s American Gothic
- Brown, Sensibility, and Sentimentalism
- Brown and the Novel in the Atlantic World
- Brown and Classicism
- Brown’s Studies in Literary Geography
- Brown, the Visual Arts, and Architecture
- Brown’s Literary Afterlife
- Brown’s Early Biographers and Reception, 1815–1940s
- Brown’s Later Biographers and Reception, 1949–2000s
- Brown Studies Now and in Transition
- Index
