ARTHUR MERVYN; OR, MEMOIRS OF THE YEAR 1793. By the Author of Wieland; and Ormond, or the Secret Witness. Copy-right secured. Philadelphia: Printed and Published by H. Maxwell, No. 3, Laetitia Court and Sold by Messrs. T. Dobson, R. Campbell, H. and P. Rice, A. Dickins, and the Principal Booksellers in the Neighbouring States, 1799. 12mo, pp. [i-iv] [1] 2-224 [note: page iv is mispaginated "vi"], collates [A]2 B-I6 K-T6 U4, contemporary full leather, spine panel ruled in gold, red leather title piece affixed to spine panel. First edition. The first part of the second of Brown's four Gothic novels, a non-supernatural study of villainy which contains a remarkably vivid description of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. Part two of ARTHUR MERVYN (not present here) was published separately in 1800. "Brown's place in literary history is not altogether due to the fact that he was the first American who tried to live by his pen or even that he was the first American novelist who won an international hearing. He continues to be occasionally read for his intrinsic merits -- for the somber intensity which, given a chance with any but superficial readers, outweighs his shambling structure and his verbose, stilted language. Like Poe and Hawthorne, whom he in several respects anticipates, Brown had a personal acquaintance with the dark moods which he enlarged and projected in his novels. He had an eager intellectual curiosity which gives his work, even at its most naïve, a certain air of range and significance." - DAB. BAL 1498. Wright (I) 418. Petter, The Early American Novel, pp. 334-40; 408-10. Leather worn at three corner tips, shallow chip from lower spine end, scattered tanning and foxing throughout, the tanning mostly to outer edges and first and last several leaves, the latter along margins and caused by interaction with the acidic leather covered boards. Not a distinguished copy, but much better than usually found, and now a book uncommon in the trade. Enclosed in a custom cloth clamshell box with leather spine label. (#168375).
Price: $1,750.00
No statement of printing.