NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 In the winter of 1789, around the time George Washington was elected the country's first president, a Boston-based printer quietly launched another American institution.
William Hill Brown's 鈥淭he Power of Sympathy,鈥 published anonymously by Isaiah Thomas & Company, is widely cited as something momentous: the first American novel.
Around 100 pages long, Brown's narrative tells of two young New Englanders whose love affair abruptly and tragically ends when they learn a shocking secret that makes their relationship unbearable. The dedication page, addressed to the 鈥淵oung Ladies of United Columbia鈥 (the United States), promised an expos茅 of 鈥渢he Fatal consequences of Seduction鈥 and a prescription for the "Economy of Human Life."
Outside of Boston society, though, few would have known or cared whether 鈥淭he Power of Sympathy鈥 marked any kind of literary milestone.
鈥淚f you picked 10 random citizens, I doubt it would have mattered to any of them,鈥 says David Lawrimore, an associate professor of English at the University of Idaho who has written often about early U.S. literature. 鈥淢ost people weren't thinking about the first American novel.鈥
What the first American novel was like
Subtitled 鈥淭he Triumph of Nature. Founded in Truth,鈥 Brown's book is in many ways characteristic of the era, whether its epistolary format, its Anglicized prose, its unidentified author, or its pious message. But 鈥淭he Power of Sympathy鈥 also includes themes that reflected the aspirations and anxieties of a young country and still resonate now.
Dana McClain, an assistant professor of English at Holy Family University, notes that Brown was an outspoken Federalist, believing in a strong national government, and shared his contemporaries' preoccupation with forging a stable republican citizenry. The letters in 鈥淭he Power of Sympathy鈥 include reflections on class, temperament and the differences between North and South, notably the 鈥渁ristocratic temper鈥 of Southern slave holders that endangered 鈥渄omestic quietude," as if anticipating the next century's Civil War.
Like many other early American writers, fiction and nonfiction, Brown tied the behavior of women to the fate of the larger society. The novel's correspondents fret about the destabilizing 鈥減ower of pleasure鈥 and how female envy 鈥渋nundates the land with a flood of scandal.鈥 Virtue is likened to a 鈥渕ighty river鈥 that "fertilizes the country through which it passes and increases in magnitude and force until it empty itself into the ocean.鈥
Brown also examines at length the ways novels might be a path to corruption or a vehicle to uplift, mirroring current debates over the banning and restrictions of books in schools and libraries.
鈥淢ost of the novels with which our female libraries are overrun are built upon on a foundation not always placed on strict morality, and in the pursuit of of objects not always probable or praiseworthy,鈥 one of Brown's characters warns. 鈥淣ovels, not regulated on the chaste principles of true friendship, rational love, and connubial duty, appear to me totally unfit to form the minds of women, of friends, or of wives.鈥
Brown was likely more interested in shaping minds than in literary glory. 鈥淭he Great American Novel鈥 is a favorite catchphrase but wasn't coined until the 1860s. During Brown's lifetime, novels were a relatively crude art form and were valued mostly for satire, light entertainment or moral instruction. Few writers identified themselves as 鈥渘ovelists鈥: Brown was known as a poet, and essayist and the composer of an opera.
Even he recognized the book鈥檚 lower stature, writing in the novel's preface: 鈥淭his species of writing hath not been received with universal approbation."
How it became considered the first
鈥淭he Power of Sympathy鈥 was commonly cited as the first American novel in the 1800s, but few bothered debating it until the 20th century. Scholars then agreed that honors should belong to the first written and published in the United States by an author born and still residing in the country.
Those guidelines disqualified such earlier works as Charlotte Ramsay Lennox's 鈥淭he Life of Harriot Stuart鈥 and Thomas Atwood Digges' 鈥淎dventures of Alonso.鈥 Another contender was "Father Bombo's Pilgrimage to Mecca,鈥 a prose adventure by college students Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Philip Freneau, both of whom went on to prominent public careers. Written around 1770, the manuscript was later believed lost and wasn't published in full until 1975.
Brown's novel was unexamined for so long that only in the late 19th century did the public even discover he had written it. Many had credited the Boston poet Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, whose family had endured a scandal similar to the one in 鈥淭he Power of Sympathy.鈥
In 1894-95, editor Arthur W. Brayley of the Bostonian serialized the novel in his magazine, identifying Morton as the author. But after being contacted by Brown's niece, Rebecca Vollentine Thompson, Brayley published a lengthy correction, titled 鈥淭he Real Author of the 鈥楶ower of Sympathy.鈥欌
Thompson herself added a preface to a 1900 reissue, noting that Brown was close to Morton's family and alleging that the publication had been 鈥渟uppressed鈥 because Brown had bared an 鈥渦nfortunate scandal.鈥
A clock maker's son, Brown was a Boston native, likely born in 1765. He was well-read, connected, culturally conservative and politically minded; one of his first published writings was an unflattering poem about Daniel Shays, the namesake for the 1786-87 rebellion of impoverished Revolutionary War veterans in Massachusetts. Brown is also the author of several posthumous releases, including the play 鈥淭he Treason of Arnold鈥 and the novel 鈥淚ra and Isabella.鈥
His unofficial standing as 鈥淎merica's First Novelist鈥 did not lead to broader fame. The novel, currently in print through a 1996 edition from Penguin Classics, remains more of interest to specialists and antiquarians than to general readers.
Brown was not yet 30 when he died in North Carolina, in 1793, from what is believed to be malaria. He apparently never married or had children. No memorials or other historical sites are dedicated to him. No literary societies have been formed in his name.
His burial site is unknown.
