What we’re about
"Classic lit" goes beyond standard 19th-century English novels. We look for, read, and discuss works of fiction (usually novels, but occasionally plays) that have endured in their genre. The time-frame may be thirty years or three hundred - yes, there ARE modern classics (looking at you, Don DeLillo). Now, that doesn't mean we don't love 19th-century English novels. We just want to challenge ourselves to discover authors and works beyond that category.
We have two basic rules for book selection: nothing over 400 pages, and nothing out of print that is not available for free online. (Personally, I have a "no Russian literature" rule, but the page limit generally takes care of that.)
As of February 2025, we will meet via Zoom every two months:
February, April, June, August, October, December.
Upcoming events (1)
See all- Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown (1798)Link visible for attendees
For October, we have what is considered the first American Gothic novel. Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale, usually simply called Wieland, is the first major work by Charles Brockden Brown. Brown is regarded by some scholars as the most important American novelist before James Fenimore Cooper. Although Brown was not the first American novelist, as some early criticism claimed, the breadth and complexity of his achievement as a writer in multiple genres (novels, short stories, essays and periodical writings, poetry, historiography, and reviews) makes him a crucial figure in literature of the early republic.
First published in 1798, Wieland distinguishes the true beginning of Brown's career as a writer. Wieland is often categorized under several sub-genres of fiction: gothic, horror, psychological, and epistolary. Major themes include religious fanaticism, sensationalist psychology, and voice and perception.
The book is set in rural Pennsylvania in the 1760s and is based on a true case of a New York famer who murdered his family. The plot turns on the charming but diabolical intruder Carwin, who exercises his power over the narrator, Clara Wieland, and her family, destroying the order of the small community in which they live.
Issues vital to the survival of democracy in the new American republic are also addressed: the operation of self-interest and personal style, the effects of sex, gender, and family history on social stability, and the power of language.
Many contemporary and later critics criticized the book for "gimmickry" and unsophisticated gothic elements that were derided as sensational. Yet the book is important as one of the first significant novels published by an American, and it was very popular with contemporary readers. It was very influential in the later development of the Gothic genre by such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and, most especially, George Lippard (1822-1854), a friend of Poe's who wrote both gothic and historical fiction that was immensely popular in its day. In The New York Review of Books, Joyce Carol Oates described Wieland as "a nightmare expression of the fulfillment of repressed desire, anticipating Edgar Allan Poe's similarly claustrophobic tales of the grotesque." The King of Weird | Joyce Carol Oates | The New York Review of Books
