"An impressive edition . . . the most thoroughly satisfying historical and literary contextualization for the novel that I've ever encountered. Shapiro and Barnard offer a rich transatlantic artistic and ideological context that helps pull the whole novel into coherent focus. The footnotes to the novel are incredibly thorough, helpful, and interesting. . . . This Hackett edition of Wieland [is] the freshest and most topical of those now available."
—Dana D. Nelson, Vanderbilt University
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A thrilling tale that leads from ventriloquism and mania to a family murder and emotional breakdown, Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland; or The Transformation (1798) ties revolutionary-era Gothic themes to struggles over the politics of Enlightenment on both sides of the Atlantic.
This edition of Wieland includes Brown's Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist and writings on Cicero, as well as his key essays on history and literature, and selections from contemporary German and other texts that figure in the novel's background and in the charged atmosphere of the late 1790s.
Reviews:
"An impressive edition . . . the most thoroughly satisfying historical and literary contextualization for the novel that I've ever encountered. Shapiro and Barnard offer a rich transatlantic artistic and ideological context that helps pull the whole novel into coherent focus. The footnotes to the novel are incredibly thorough, helpful, and interesting. . . . This Hackett edition of Wieland [is] the freshest and most topical of those now available."
—Dana D. Nelson, Vanderbilt University
"The 'related texts' are impressive . . . This edition gives a fresh perspective on sources. Wieland's Germanic literary influences are shown to subvert the conservative aims of the ideas of Enlightened Absolutism, practised by Frederick the Great. Gottfried Burger's influential poem, Lenore, extracts from German horror and Illuminati novel, and the writings of Christoph Martin Wieland (whose name Brown borrowed) deepen our understanding of Brown's progressive politics as displayed in this novel."
—Max Fincher, Times Literary Supplement
Contents:
Acknowledgments; Introduction; A Note on the Text
Wieland; or the Transformation. An American Tale
Related Texts:
A. By Charles Brockden Brown:
1. "Walstein's School of History. From the German of
Krants of Gotha" (August–September 1799)
2. "The Difference Between History and Romance" (April 1800)
3. Two Statements on the Modern Novel:
a. "Romances" (January 1805)
b. Excerpt from "Terrific Novels" (April 1805)
4. Three Texts on Cicero
a. "On the Merits of Cicero" (May 1805)
b. "Ciceronians" (June 1805)
c. "Death of Cicero, A Fragment" (January 1800)
5. Letter to Samuel Miller (June 20, 1803)
6. Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist
(November 1803–March 1805)
B. Literary and Cultural Context
7. The Yates and Beadle Family Murders:
a. Anonymous, "An Account of a Murder, Committed
by Mr. J— Y—, Upon his Family," etc. (July 1796)
b. Anonymous, Account of the Beadle Murders
(December 1783)
c. Stephen Mix Mitchell, excerpts from A Narrative of
the Life of William Beadle (1783, 1795)
8. Elias Marion, excerpts from Prophetical Warnings (1707)
9. William Godwin, excerpts from Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice (1793)
10. Erasmus Darwin, excerpts from Zoönomia; or,
The Laws of Organic Life (1794)
11. Christoph Martin Wieland, excerpt from
"Answers and Counter-Questions to Some Doubts
and Questions from a Curious World Citizen" (1783)
12. Gottfried Bürger's Lenore:
a. William Taylor translation "Lenora: A Ballad, from
Bürger" (1796)
b. Diana Beauclerk and Francesco Bartolozzi, engraving
of Lenore and the Spectre Bridegroom (1796)
13. Horror Novel, State Romance, and the German Literary Wave:
a. Peter Will, "Preface of the Translator" from
The Victim of Magical Delusion (1795)
b. Friedrich Schiller, excerpts from The Ghost-Seer (1796)
14. Illuminati Debates: Timothy Dwight versus John Ogden
(1798–1799)
Bibliography and Works Cited
About the Authors:
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.