Wieland or The Transformation Author:Charles Brockden Brown Fiction did not flourish in early America, where it was generally viewed as a useless or demoralizing pastime. Before Charles Brockden Brown, America had no professional man of letters. Wieland, his first novel, appeared in 1798; among the romances by anonymous young ladies, it was a pioneering effort to create a serious American literature. — In... more » a land without castles or ghosts, Brown found the suggestion for a Gothic tale of terror in the strange case of a farmer in Tomhannock, New York, who believed he had been commanded by angels to kill his family. He provided a sensational plot to interest all readers, while writing a novel of ideas that explored "the moral constitution of man." The elder Wieland, a mystic, builds a temple on his estate for his private devotions. One night he is killed by a mysterious flash of light. His children live on happily with their companions, using the temple as a summer house -- until they begin to hear unearthly voices, a charming vagabond joins their circle, and the father's fanaticism overtakes the mind of the son. In its time, Brown's writing presented a searching and original study of mania and remorse, foreshadowing Poe and Hawthorne.« less