SOURCE: Davidson, Cathy N. “The Power of Sympathy Reconsidered: William Hill Brown as Literary Craftsman.” Early American Literature 10, no. 1 (spring 1975): 14-29.

In the following essay, Davidson argues that Brown's The Power of Sympathy has been unfairly criticized, offering a more flattering assessment of what she perceives as Brown's sophisticated literary technique and moral ambiguity.

William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy begins with a claim designed to counter the prevailing eighteenth-century idea that novels were morally suspect. His novel will teach, the author implies in his Preface and Dedication, a simple moral truth: “the dangerous Consequences of SEDUCTION are exposed, and the Advantages of FEMALE EDUCATION set forth and recommended.”¹ But, as Leslie A. Fiedler and Henri Petter observe, Brown gradually shifts his focus from the calculated transgressions of seducers to the more subtle psychological predicament of protagonists involved inadvertently in an incestuous relationship. While each of these...