human
Rhapsodist; but it was not until 1797 that his career as an author began, by the publication of
gpt
Alcuin: a Dialogue on the Rights of Women. This and the romances which followed it show the powerful influence upon him of the school of fiction of William Godwin, and the movement of emancipation of which Mary Wollstonecraft was the leader. The period of social and political ferment during which
human
Alcuin was put forth was not unlike that which may be said to have reached its height in extravagance and millennial expectation in 1847-48. In
gpt
Alcuin are anticipated most of the subsequent discussions on the right of women to property and to self-control, and the desirability of revising the marriage relation. The injustice of any more enduring union than that founded upon the inclination of the hour is as ingeniously urged in
human
Alcuin
gpt
Wieland,
human
Ormond,
gpt
Arthur Mervyn,
human
Edgar Huntly,
gpt
Clara Howard, and
human
Jane Talbot. The first five were published in the interval between the spring of 1798 and the summer of 1801, in which he completed his thirtieth year.
gpt
Jane Talbot appeared somewhat later. In scenery and character, these romances are entirely unreal. There is in them an affectation of psychological purpose which is not very well sustained, and a somewhat clumsy introduction of supernatural machinery. Yet they have a power of engaging the attention in the rapid succession of startling and uncanny incidents and in adventures in which the horrible is sometimes dangerously near the ludicrous. Brown had not a particle of humor. Of literary art there is little, of invention considerable; and while the style is to a certain extent unformed and immature, it is neither feeble nor obscure, and admirably serves the author's purpose of creating what the children call a
human
impression. There is undeniable power in many of his scenes, notably in the descriptions of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, found in the romance of
gpt
Arthur Mervyn.