SOURCE: Byers, John R., Jr. “Further Verification of the Authorship of The Power of Sympathy.” American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 43, no. 3 (November 1971): 421-27.

In the following essay, Byers revisits the authorship controversy surrounding The Power of Sympathy, arguing that several documents as well as Brown's handwriting show the novel to have been written by him.

In October, 1894, Arthur W. Brayley, editor of the Bostonian, began a serial publication of the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy, under the name of Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Morton,¹ to whom the novel, long anonymous, had been attributed publicly at least since 1878.² Between the October and December issues of the magazine, Mrs. Rebecca Vollentine Thompson convinced the editor of the rightful authorship of William Hill Brown, her uncle, and supplied information concerning the 1789 publication of the novel. In the December issue of the Bostonian, Brayley corrected his...