SOURCE: Fussell, Edwin Sill. “Wieland: A Literary and Historical Reading.” Early American Literature 18, no. 2 (fall 1983): 171-86.

In the following essay, Fussell suggests that Clara Wieland's struggle to produce the narrative of her family story parallels Brown's struggle to produce a new American literature.

I entreated him to tell me … what progress had been made in detecting or punishing the author of this unheard-of devastation.

“The author!” said he; “Do you know the author?”

“Alas!” I answered, “I am too well acquainted with him. The story of the grounds of my suspicions would be painful and too long.”¹

Dark Transitions

Born January 17, 1771, in the proprietary colony of Pennsylvania, a presumably loyal subject of the crown; five years old when the American Revolution broke out; twelve years old when the Treaty of Paris was signed; eighteen years old when the Constitution was ratified: if not in 1776 or 1783 then certainly in...