Arthur Mervyn

by Charles Brockden Brown

Arthur Mervyn has long puzzled students and scholars with its seeming diffuseness, resulting from its original serial publication. Critics agree, however, that the power of this novel lies not so much in its portrait of “right virtue,” which was Brown’s primary aim, as in its realistic descriptions of the yellow fever epidemic and the ensuing panic that swept Philadelphia in the summer of 1793. The ambiguities of Arthur Mervyn’s character and the precarious nature of the revolutionary 1790s make this novel a particularly apt subject for lively discussion and future scholarship and make this revised edition an excellent classroom text.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Gothic, 18th Century, Novels, American, School

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1798

About the author

Charles Brockden Brown (January 17, 1771 – February 22, 1810), an American novelist, historian, and editor of the Early National period, is generally regarded by scholars as the most ambitious and accomplished US novelist before James Fenimore Cooper. He is the most frequently studied and republished practitioner of the "early American novel," or the US novel between 1789 and roughly 1820. Although Brown was by no means the first American novelist, as some early criticism claimed, the breadth and complexity of his achievement as a writer in multiple genres (novels, short stories, essays and periodical writings of every sort, poetry, historiography, reviews) makes him a crucial figure in US literature and culture of the 1790s and first decade of the 19th century, and a significant public intellectual in the wider Atlantic print culture and public sphere of the era of the French Revolution.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

After his father's remarriage, young and naive Arthur Mervyn is forced to leave his father's farm and make his own living in the city (Philadelphia). Once there, he runs into alot of bad luck, mainly having to do with the con man Thomas Welbeck. Mervyn, with the help of some good people he meets in the city, tries to right the wrongs done by Welbeck, while trying to better his own education and employment.

There are alot of characters in this novel, and I struggled to keep them all straight. (Making a list helps.) The plot is sometimes told by relating other people's stories and then returning to the main narration. This, too, can be confusing to follow. Despite these challenges, the book was always an interesting and compelling read.

[Justinian · Rating 3 out of 5]

2019-02 – Arthur Mervyn Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 Charles Brockden Brown (Author) 1799. 374 Pages.

This book is on the curriculum for The Rosenbach Library and Museum’s “Philadelphia Gothic” series. I had read one of the books from the list last year (The Quaker City: or The Monks of Monk Hall) and enjoyed it so I thought I would follow the series as a way to learn some local history and take in some early American literature. I did not enjoy this book as much as the other. This book is “Gothic” but the prose is decidedly in the Romantic Era. Hyper descriptive, florid, with a great vocabulary. I really enjoyed the words. WWI really cropped our common vocabulary (see: The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussel) and I love words so this boo was a treat. The story is full of twists and circles. The author seems to have created an almost fanciful plot filled with connections. However, if you read societal stuff from that era you will note that there were in fact many of these same levels and layers of interconnectedness. The Yellow Fever epidemic is a backdrop to what is really a coming of age and growing up story. The level of death and despair depicted is perhaps, if anything, a bit tame. Some characters are more fleshed out than others and you sense that some are architypes, set into the plot more as symbols. A good book, worth a read if you have the time.

[Lauren Albert]

My review of Wieland says more about what I think about Brown's work. I wrote my dissertation on his novels. Arthur Mervyn is the strangest of them--and that is saying something! Mervyn--the character-- is truly a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. Is he an innocent? A fool? A trickster? It is a puzzle whose pieces will never all come together. Set during a plague year, the book is also a frightening and enlightening look at human behavior in the face of terror. As in Wieland, the book questions whether we can ever have a solid foundation on which to build trust in one another and in the reality we (think) we experience.

[Mark Stephenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in 1790's Philadelphia and Baltimore and written in an antique, stately and flowery style, this novel surprised me by being readable, interesting and even touching. Was the Great American Novel already written before the 19th century ever turned?

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only way to ready Arthur Mervyn.

[Lluis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hace un mes que no leía y qué manera de volver.

Hay muchísimo que comentar pero me quedaré en esbozo.

La encontré un día de casualidad, recién traducida al castellano y dije ¿A ver? Y luego ya la estaba leyendo. Es una novela que son dos novelas o, bueno, dos partes y están bien diferenciadas y las diferencias entre ellas me desconciertan más que las semejanzas.

La primera es una buena historia, algo forzada, de enredo dinámico y eventos que se acumulan. La forma y el desarrollo descubren unos recursos narrativos flacos y un proceder que es normalillo y que lo salva la descripción de la peste, algunas gracias y el hecho de ser la primera novela propiamente norteamericana. Pero es entretenida y funciona bien.

La segunda es el tronche de la primera de forma que, siguiendo la historia en el mismo tono, esta se autovulnera en nombre de no sé muy bien qué. Arthur Mervyn, protagonista, a quien conocemos, de pronto resulta un ser extraño y enigmático y uno ya no sabe qué pensar, de la sospecha pasamos a una épica de decisiones agobiantes en que ya no se sabe qué es cierto y qué no y al final pseudo"plotwists" a nivel... ¿temático? No sé, pero algo que me entretenía y que me daba un poco igual, me ha tensado, airado y emocionado. Nada mal.

Con más detalle, sabiendo quién trata cada parte, podríamos considerar que, como de la primera parte a la segunda cambia el narrador y, por tanto, también los vicios narrativos, estos últimos estén realizados a propósito, con lo cual sería ya una obra maestrísima. Pero lo dudo, lo dudo. Y luego, Siendo rancia es ¿Feminista? Eso parece, pero luego, en el momento menos esperado ¿Antisemitismo? Pero nada, apenas una sombra y de boca de un personaje judío que además es el centro y objeto del máximo respeto en todo el libro...🤷‍♂️

Es un libro de los raros que he leído pero sin ser ajeno ni extravagante. Brown hace buenos personajes y sin duda era una persona de una gran sensibilidad.

Así que no entiendo por qué quien lee esto piensa "Le pongo un treh".

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my American Gothic Literature class but to me it reads more like a sensation novel (of which I am fond - don’t get me wrong!). The narrator is extremely unreliable and you never know what to think. At times you have narration inside narration and it can get confusing. I felt more than once that a character map would be helpful. Overall, it was completely over-the-top and I enjoyed it.

[matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Charles Brockden Brown even if his books can sometimes be a tough slog (must-read-twice curlicues of sentences, total implausibility on every level [by today's standards, anyway], etc.). I really enjoy reading all the crazy/horrible/salacious combinations of infanticide/rape/religious maniac/prostitute-type things he tucks into his stories, partially because I didn't think they were supposed to be acknowledged pre-1960's lit, much less pre-1800's lit! It's refreshing to know not just that people have always been flawed, but also that it's always been entertaining to other people to hear about it in as much detail as possible.
Brown's also interesting because he's one of the first significant American novelists, and you can see some of his influence on the better-known generation that followed (Hawthorne, Poe, etc.). While the later generation tends to be more refined and psychologically realistic, you can still see them wrestling with morality vs. human nature in a land that was supposed to offer a blank slate.

[Ereck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interpolations within interpolations within interpolations. And strains of proto-feminism in early America. Beware of spoilers and unnecessary interpretive work in numerous notes. A great critical edition, but it goes too far in both these regards.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether you believe him or not, Arthur Mervyn is interesting, though circuitous journey. Heavy CBB.

[armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is told in a beautiful prose while unfolding from the perspectives of several narrators which by creating a network, make it very catchy... but then it starts off with a number of themes -trade networks in the Caribbean, emergence of a new bourgeoisie, malignance of the mercantile class - that I was wishing would be more elaborate throughout the story... I don’t wanna say I didn’t like it because I did but it fell short of my expectations and I feel disappointed. Another wonder to me is the overdrive to categorize this novel as a gothic... I mean, that’s what I am gonna do too on my Goodreads shelf but then: a goodreads shelf is pretty different with genre definition in literary criticism! The love relation between Ascha and Arthur was portrayed in a weird way - cannot really think of other stories with such a love relationship - and some of the elements in the story are just abandoned which is a bit unexpected considering that they were actually substantial throughout the story.

Anyway, reading a book that deals with an epidemic during a pandemic was a wild ride and I have to say I got familiar with a whole bunch of issues that I was pretty far from. I never thought there would be this kind of narration in the Early Republic literature. I also learned about a new writer, whom I didn’t know and well, of course I need to say that the Hackett Edition curated by Stephen Shapiro is extraordinary. There are a lot of readings and contexts that lead you through understanding the story however, the footnotes sometimes seem too much disclosing the upcoming parts of the story before you actually get there.
Fine reading overall!

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young man leaves home to make his fortune during an epidemic of 1793, only to discover that humanity is less than noble.

Hm...a difficult one to review. The beginning was slow drudgery. I put the book down for a while, then picked it up again to give it another chance. Things picked up when we started hearing the different spin that Mervyn's neighbors put on the actions that he narrated. Was Mervyn telling the truth or not? How would this look to someone outside the situation? That was the theme of the book, and it generally played out well (although the last bit was kind of dull again, as the question of what was going on was resolved). I liked it, I found that playing with the idea of an unreliable narrator fascinating, but noooot quite a masterpiece. Falls in the same vein as Caleb Williams or La-Bas.

[Anirudh · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a lot of characters after the first half, and it can be difficult to keep track of everyone. It's also hard to tell who is narrating sometimes. The plot involving Welbeck is interesting but after that the book becomes a different story and it's not really interesting. During the second half I zoned out a lot because the narrative loses all structure and introduces new characters I didn't really care about even after the central conflict of the first half has been resolved. Like I said the first part of the book involving Welbeck and the sunken shipment of goods was interesting but after that the book definitely overstayed its welcome for me.

[Aloysius · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm finished is a mis-statement. This is in that, I made it nearly halfway through and decided I didn't want to spend any more time on it. Not that it's a bad book. It's more a book that's bloated and circuitous. It's a book of its time that hasn't aged particularly well. Brockden Brown never chose a simple word when the most complex word would suit him and this leads it to feel like, well, did people ever really talk this way? They might have. "I beseech you!" Just kind of feels, well, convoluted. So, yeah, I was on Chapter 21 in the audiobook and thought, there are better uses of my time.

[Harald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Er ist so eine Art Simplicius Simplicissimus mit einer Prise Felix Krull. Nie weiß man so genau, ob man ihm sein wohlmeinend naives Gutmenschentum abkaufen soll, oder ob er gerade dabei ist, uns über's Ohr zu hauen. Episch wuchernder Entwicklungsroman aus dem frühen Amerika über das Glück, das Unglück und die seltsamen Abenteuer eines jungen Burschen, dem man kaum etwas abschlagen kann. Mit Längen aber ein durchaus lesbares Kulturgut.

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so weird! It made me kind of love it. It was spooky and gothic with a shockingly "coincidental" plot. But I'm not over the scene where Arthur is knitting and explicitly flouting gender norms to his conventional neighbor. It was a hokey gothic novel, a scary plague/disease novel, and had a dumb sentimental/marriage novel plot at the end. It was a wild ride, but a fun one.

[Christopher Stroud · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a long book mostly dictated through dialog and hearsay. It is a mixture of genres and though it does okay in each it doesn't do any one exceptionally well.

It could have been as good as David Copperfield but it isn't. I would not bother reading twice.

[Tanner · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little hard to get all the way through, but overall good novel (considering the period) :-)

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly easy to read. Interesting economic entanglements.

[Valentina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Ines]

anytime arthur mervyn opened his mouth to speak on women i'd audibly sigh

[Philip Magnier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indeed a strange book for a modern reader: emotional, flamboyant, intense, worthy, well meaning. With a protagonist who instantly identifies with everyone he meets and takes their cause as his own, a plot that rambles but always engages. The sheer highmindedness of it!

The writing reminds me of Dickens and Edgar Allen Poe. The former for the characterisations, the story lines, and the joy in people while seeing their faults as transparently as a glass of water. The latter for the adolescent and intense emotion, the horrors, the hypnotic readability. I could add a third author, Tolstoy, for the page upon page upon page of plot lines. Mind boggling!

It was written in 1799 and reads like it. The language is antique English and often difficult to follow; admirable and eloquent but circuitous, repetitive, and tortuous. But you get used to it, I found.

The descriptions of the yellow fever plague in Philadelphia in 1793 are very good, he spares us nothing but it reads as very accurate and he shows us the worst and best of the people caught up in it. The wanderings of poor Arthur will remind anyone of the awkwardness, docility, and willfulness of being a teenager out in the world for the first time. He grows as a person tremendously, and we get to know the many sides of his character over the course of the book.

It is written by a man who aspires to much and thinks about everything. I loved it and literally could not put it down until falling asleep. A gem from the past.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an odd book this is, almost like several books rolled into one - all about the yellow fever one minute, then it's never mentioned again.....the woman who has no money and then is suddenly rich, and what happened to her child, and why didn't he tell Mrs Watson about Mr Watson, and what was all that about Wallace and the practical joke, it's as if the author was brimming with plot ideas which he never quite carried through. But it's very readable, and Arthur himself is a fascinating character. I must try some more CBB.

[James Dorwart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book set in Philadelphia during the epidemic which killed 20% of the population in 1791, written in 1792 by a survivor. The story is about a conman and features the city in an amazing perspective. Not my favorite of his books, though probably the most accessible to most readers.

[Joe Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for my honors thesis in college. Bleh.

[Jen Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite CBB novel but good in it's own right. Kinda surprised at the ending of it, which is good.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow this was a tough one to make it through. People get sick in the book, it is a very central theme. However, I had to use Wikipedia to figure out the significance and the plot.

[Chrisanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flighty drama.

[Lulu]

1799