SOURCE: Verhoeven, W. M. “‘Persuasive Rhetorick’: Representation and Resistance in Early American Epistolary Fiction.” In Making America/Making American Literature, edited by A. Robert Lee and W. M. Verhoeven, pp. 130-39. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996.

In the following excerpt, Verhoeven takes issue with several critics who have written about The Power of Sympathy, arguing that Brown's work cannot properly be included in the ranks of epistolary novels, and indeed cannot really be classified as a novel at all.

America's first epistolary novel may be a direct descendant of Clarissa, but it is a considerably toned down version of Richardson's original. The subtle epistolary techniques that Richardson employs in his magnum opus are seldom displayed in The Power of Sympathy. Thus the use of letters as a method of establishing mood and characterization does not extend much beyond the light-hearted bragging in Harrington's first three letters to his friend Worthy, and...