Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) was one of the first prominent American novelists and a pioneer of Gothic literature in the United States. His work laid the foundation for the development of American literature, combining elements of psychological analysis, social criticism, and eerie atmosphere.
Brown was born in Philadelphia to a Quaker family. After a brief career as a lawyer, he decided to devote himself entirely to literature. His novels, such as Wieland, or the Transformation (1798), Edgar Huntley, or the Memoirs of an Insomniac (1799), and Arthur Mervyn (1799), were groundbreaking works that explored themes of mental health, morality, religion, and social pressure.
Brown was a master of the Gothic genre, using elements of mystery, the supernatural, and the unsettling, but he also paid attention to realistic social issues, which made his works particularly unique. His influence can be traced in the literature of later authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Despite his relatively short literary career, Charles Brockden Brown remains a key figure in the history of American literature, known as "the first American novelist."
