Based on an actual case of a New York farmer who murdered his family, the novel employs Gothic devices and sensational elements such as spontaneous combustion, ventriloquism, and religious fanaticism.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic includes Wieland’s fragmentary sequel, Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist, as well as several other important but hard-to-find Brockden Brown short stories, including “Thessalonica,” “Walstein’s ...

Reproduction of the original: Wieland, or The Transformation by Charles Brockden Brown

A seminal work both of American literature and the literature of the weird. First published in 1798, Wieland distinguishes the true beginning of Brockden's career as a writer. Wieland is the first - and most famous - American Gothic novel.

It recounts the terrifying story of how Theodore Wieland is driven to madness and murder by a malign ventriloquist called Carwin.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

The novel engages with many of the period’s popular debates about women’s education, marriage, and the morality of violence, while the plot revolves around the Gothic themes of seduction, murder, incest, impersonation, romance and ...