SOURCE: "Charles Brockden Brown," in The Analysis of Motives: Early American Psychology and Fiction, Rodopi, 1980, pp. 1-37.

In the following essay, Smith studies the manner in which Charles Brockden Brown portrayed madness in his novels. Smith observes that Brown was intensely interested in science and psychology and that through his novels, Brown achieved a deeper understanding of the human mind than that which was offered by contemporary psychology.

Scientific Terror

Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland begins with an "Advertisement" to the reader. The incidents related, it claims, "are extraordinary and rare. Some of them, perhaps, approach as nearly to the nature of miracles as can be done by that which is not truly miraculous. It is hoped that intelligent readers will not disapprove of the manner in which appearances are solved, but that the solution will be found to correspond with the known principles of human nature."¹ The mysterious...