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](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/10/31/the-king-of-weird/)

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Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown (1798)

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Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown (1798)

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