American Gothic

February 25, 2009 6:37 PM

LitFilter: Who are the American Gothic Novelists?

I'm looking for Early American literature in the Gothic tradition. In particular, I'd like to find novels (or short stories) similar in style, theme, and - this is important - period to Charles Brockden Brown's work. Were any other American writers doing the horror thing in the 18th and early 19th century? Hawthorne comes to mind, but he was really writing in a later historical moment than I'd like to explore. (Side note - I'm specifically not interested in James Fenimore Cooper. At all. Unless you can find a way for me to go back in time, meet him, and make musket wadding of his Last of the Mohicans manuscript.)

TIA

posted by Edelweiss to media & arts (21 comments total)

Poe?
posted by mr_roboto at 6:46 PM on February 25

Umm, Edgar Allen Poe? Yes?
posted by valkyryn at 6:46 PM on February 25

H. P. Lovecraft?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:58 PM on February 25

In America, two notable writers of the end of the 19th century, in the Gothic tradition, were Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:01 PM on February 25

Poe (and I would Cooper) are not of the same period as CBB. Neither is Hawthorne. Brockden Brown wrote the bulk of his significant work between 1798 and 1801, before Hawthorne and Poe were even born. Cooper might get lumped into the Early National period with Brown, but Hawthorne and Poe definitely not.

However, I'm afraid I don't know of any other American writers of Brockden Brown's generation who were anything quite like him. Most of the American writers in this period were probably reading European literature. Brockden Brown was largely working toward importing European generic conventions into an American context (wherein the woods might replace the Gothic castle).
posted by synecdoche at 7:01 PM on February 25

Poe is a little closer to the time-frame I'm interested in, but his gothic work doesn't begin until the 1830s. What I'm hoping to find is work produced prior to, say, 1815.

Perhaps I'm on a unicorn hunt?
posted by Edelweiss at 7:02 PM on February 25

(Bierce and Chambers are even farther away. Thee OP wants people of the same period.)
posted by synecdoche at 7:03 PM on February 25

This may seem like a strange suggestion, because it's ostensibly not a novel, but what about The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk? It was first published in 1836, which might be later than you want.
posted by craichead at 7:08 PM on February 25

Oh, shoot. I should have previewed. Sorry.
posted by craichead at 7:09 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

"Early American Gothic Novels

Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland, Arthur Mervyn, Edgar Huntly

James Fenimore Cooper: The Spy and any of the five Leatherstocking Tales

George Lippard: The Quaker City; or The Monks of Monk Hall

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables

Henry Clay Lewis: Odd Leaves from the Life of a Louisiana Swamp Doctor

Herman Melville: Moby-Dick

Louisa May Alcott: Behind a Mask: or, a Woman's Power

Sarah Orne Jewett: The Country of Pointed Firs

Charles W. Chesnutt: The Conjure Woman

George Washington Cable: Old Creole Days

Frank Norris: Vandover and the Brute

Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Sport of the Gods

Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome"
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:18 PM on February 25

Washington Irving (maybe) Irving lifted from German Gothic collections of folk tales, but it might be hard to call him actually Gothic. Gothic elements, though, aplenty.
posted by LucretiusJones at 7:24 PM on February 25

Washington Irving, absolutely!

Tell me how Rip (R. I. P.) Van Winkle isn't the first American zombie.

Also, check out the sermons of Cotton Mather.
posted by jamjam at 7:56 PM on February 25

I'm going to agree with synecdoche--there really isn't anyone else doing what Brown is doing in the period. He's the one who brings European Gothic conventions to America, and he doesn't have any immediate followers. I don't think the stuff Washington Irving is writing, spooky as some of it may be, comes from the same tradition. What is being written at the same time (and for several decades before Brown is writing) are "true life" captivity narratives--sensational, ultra-violent stories of white girls abducted by Indians. These, particularly Mary Rowlandson's, are often cited as influences on Edgar Huntly.

So, I think: yeah, unicorn hunt.

(And people, please read the question. None of the authors people are mentioning--besides Irving--are writing in 1815. Lovecraft? C'mon.)
posted by neroli at 8:11 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

The name that instantly came to mine for me is Washington Irving.

But if he doesn't quite fit the bill, then I concur with neroli above - it may be a unicorn hunt
posted by chris88 at 8:34 PM on February 25

Oh, Cotton Mather! Good call! Not Gothic, to be sure, but his sermons definitely influenced the writing of the likes of Hawthorne.

And Mary Rowlandson...didn't her captivity narrative tell of her literally taking the food out of the mouths of children? That's certainly an element of horror.

Since there seems to be a consensus that the original query is a lost cause, perhaps we could continue in this direction? Anyone want to suggest other Early Americanists who might not be Gothic per se, but who might have influenced the development of the genre?
posted by Edelweiss at 8:54 PM on February 25

If you haven't, you might want to take a look at Lovecraft's extended (and very interesting) essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." See especially Part VIII - The Weird Tradition in America. He seems to revel in ferreting out writers with horror elements during the past few centuries, so the fact that a quick glance through my copy doesn't show any American names beyond those mentioned here - Brown, Irving, Poe, Hawthorne - for the early 1800s might be an indicator of unicorn hunting ahead.
posted by mediareport at 9:58 PM on February 25

You could try poking around in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature's relevant chapters. I learned that a writer named Isaac Mitchell published a popular Gothic novel called The Asylum in 1811, for example, and that popular melodrama used Gothic elements.
posted by cgc373 at 6:57 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]

The captivity narratives might be an interesting way to approach it. Rowlandson is just the tip of the iceberg. Check out also (I think) the Mannheim Anthology (1793), which was probably one of the sources that inspired Cooper's depiction of captivity (and the attack on Fort William Henry, baby-smashing and all) in Last of the Mohicans. Eric Sundquist talks about the relationship between gothic convention and captivity convention in his recent book Empire and Slavery in American Literature (p 115).

For Mather, what you probably will want is Wonders of the Invisible World (1693) where he discusses the use of spectral evidence in the Salem Witch Trials. (Incidentally, there's a collection of documentary material about the Trials by Frances Hill that you might find interesting if that is an avenue you want to pursue.)
posted by synecdoche at 7:39 AM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Wow, that Isaac Mitchell reference looks like gold. I had never heard of it, but it may be the unicorn you're looking for. Poking around for more information on it, I also came across mention of Julia and the Illuminated Baron by Sally Wood, published in 1800.

On the captivity narrative front, besides Rowlandson, there's the "Manheim Anthology"--a collection of several accounts published in 1793. Really gruesome stuff--lots of tortured maidens--and a huge best-seller.
posted by neroli at 7:45 AM on February 26

Ha! Should have previewed.
posted by neroli at 7:45 AM on February 26

Wow! Great stuff coming of this. Thank you all so much!

I knew I loved MeFites!
posted by Edelweiss at 9:28 AM on February 26