Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker: With Related Texts

Description

In addition to the definitive UVA text of Brown's seminal novel, this edition includes an introduction setting the work in its historical, literary, and intellectual contexts. Selections from William Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), Erasmus Darwin's Zoonomia; or,The Laws of Organic Life (1794), Benjamin Franklin's "A Narrative of the Late Massacres" (1764), and Thomas Barton's "The conduct of the Paxton-men" (1764) are included here, as are several of Brown's lesser-known but revealing writings on such subjects as somnambulism and the uses of history in fiction.

Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) is an important figure in Gothic literature, credited with writing one of the first American Gothic novels. He was born in Pennsylvania to a Quaker family and originally trained to become a lawyer. Unable to apply the Gothic European settings of crumbling castles to America, he relocated his tales to rural locales, but maintained the same chilling atmosphere within his stories. Philip Barnard is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Kansas. Stephen Shapiro is Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick.

This is now the edition of choice for those of us who teach Brown's fascinating Edgar Huntly . Barnard and Shapiro explore the relevant historical, cultural, and literary backgrounds in their illuminating Introduction; they skillfully annotate the text; they provide useful and up-to-date bibliographies; and they append a number of revealing primary texts for further cultural contextualization. This edition will help to stimulate new thinking about race, empire, and sexuality in Brown's prescient novel of the American frontier. --Robert S. Levine, University of Maryland The striking painting by a French artist on the cover of this American novel signals the editors' refreshing approach to Edgar Huntly through trans-Atlantic discourses of empire, radical-democratic social theory, sensibility, and sexuality. . . .This edition provides students with the tools to contextualize and analyze Edgar Huntly , including an extensive bibliography of relevant scholarship and footnotes that define unfamiliar words, give historical background, or refer the reader back to the introduction. Barnard and Shapiro's selection of related texts from works including William Godwin's Political Justice and Brown's essays gives students insight on Edgar Huntly's sources. --Yvette Piggush, Journal of the Early Republic