Brown’s Later Biographers and Reception, 1949–2000s

Biography and reception of Charles Brockden Brown since the mid-twentieth century was marked by efforts to canonize him and to recover primary and related texts. The first generation of this era typically practiced formalist readings and focused primarily on Brown’s first four novels. Often psychobiographical, these studies created a “Gothic” and proto-Romantic Brown. Later generations have expanded the canon to include Brown’s work over his lifetime, including the many genres he worked in; have practiced more cultural and poststructuralist methodologies with an eye to gender and sexuality, geography, race, and class; have placed Brown in a more global context; and have brought Brown studies into the era of digital humanities.