SOURCE: "The Literary Opinions of Charles Brockden Brown, " in Studies in Philology, Vol. XXXI, No. 4, October, 1934, pp. 541-566.

In the following essay, Marchand uses a variety of sources—including the prefaces to Brown 's novels, literary allusions in his novels, his reviews and contributions to periodicals, and letters and passages in his journal—to examine Brown 's literary and critical theories. Marchand notes in particular that Brown 's literary judgments were guided by his view that the value of works of literature lies in their "moral tendency."

Since Charles Brockden Brown never formulated his literary or critical theories in an extended discourse comparable to Poe's "Poetic Principle" or Hugo's "Préface de Cromwell," any discussion of them must rest on the following sources: (1) the prefaces to his novels, (2) literary references and allusions found in the novels themselves, (3) his reviews of books in the several periodicals¹ which he edited...