In Edgar Huntly (1799) Charles Brockden Brown exhorted aspirant American authors to focus on the West as useful material for creating a genuinely indigenous literature. Frederick William Thomas takes a place with others such as James Kirke Paulding, Washington Irving, Timothy Flint, and James Hall who responded, at least in part, to Brown's call. Clinton Bradshaw; or, The Adventures of a Lawyer (1835), Thomas's first novel, and The Beechen Tree: A Tale Told in Rhyme (1844) became popular among American readers, and reviewers gave careful consideration to his writings; however, Thomas's publications have sustained little popularity since their own day. He is accorded scantiest notice in the long standard histories of American fiction by Arthur Hobson Quinn and Alexander Cowie, and he is ignored elsewhere in accounts of the American novel.

Most biographical accounts of Thomas--including one of his own sent to Edgar Allan Poe in late 1841--offer many inaccuracies. Indeed...