Repository:

Kent State University Libraries. Special Collections and Archives.

Title:

Charles Brockden Brown Bicentennial Edition records

Inclusive Date(s):

1689-1995

Bulk Date(s):

1917-1995

Author:

Finding aid prepared by Robin M. Katz, February 2009

Sponsor:

Kent State University, Special Collections and Archives

Creation:

Finding aid encoded by Robin M. Katz using the OhioLINK EAD Application in 2008

Description Rules:

Finding aid prepared using DACS

Origination:

Kent State University. Institute for Bibliography and Editing

Extent:

11.75 cubic feet (11 record storage boxes and three small media boxes)

Physical Location:

11th floor

Finding Aid Identifier:

OhKeUSC0071

Abstract:

This collection contains source material, bibliographic research, manuscript drafts, and documentary evidence for the six volume critical edition The Novels and Related Works of Charles Brockden Brown: Bicentennial Edition published by the Kent State University Press under the Modern Language Association Center for Editions of American Authors / Committee on Scholarly Editions. It includes the unpublished manuscript of Charles Brockden Brown: His Life and Works by Daniel Edwards Kennedy.

Language(s):

The records are in English.

Biography of Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) and Daniel Edwards Kennedy (1897-1960)

Charles Brockden Brown is generally considered America's first professional novelist, although he wrote short stories, essays, and political pamphlets and was also the editor of several early American magazines. Raised a Quaker in Philadelphia, he disappointed his family when he left a budding legal career to pursue writing full time in 1793. He moved to New York in 1798 to be nearer his literary friends. After surviving the yellow fever epidemic, he wrote his four major novels - Wieland, Ormond, Arthur Mervyn, and Edgar Huntly - in an eighteen month period. Unable to sustain himself, he returned to Philadelphia in 1800, where he worked for his family business and as an editor. He married Elizabeth Linn in 1804; she and their four children survived him when he died from tuberculosis in 1810.

Daniel Edwards Kennedy was a twentieth century scholar whose unpublished manuscript biography of Brown was a major source for the Bicentennial Edition. Kennedy was independently wealthy and established a print shop in his Chestnut Hill, MA home. While working on his M.A. (1906) in abstentia from Yale, Kennedy became interested in Brown. His library, which has been called "one of the most extraordinary collections of American literature ever formed" (Stoddard 11), featured the most comprehensive Brown holdings of his time. Kennedy determined to write a biography of Brown, but the massive manuscript, completed mostly between 1917 and 1948, was never published. After he died in 1960, Kennedy's children sold his library. The manuscript for Charles Brockden Brown: His Life and Works was purchased by the Kent State Bibliographical and Textual Center in 1966.

Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) (detailed biography note)

Charles Brockden Brown is generally considered the first American novelist, although he also wrote short stories, essays, and political pamphlets. Noted for his international audience and his attempt to support himself solely on writing, Brown is often considered the first professional American author (Mullane 1). He was heavily influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women and William Godwin's An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (Dewsbury 1).Brown was born in Philadelphia on January 17, 1771 to Elijah and Mary Armitt Brown. His parents were pacifist Quakers and he attended Robert Proud's Philadelphia Friends Latin School from the ages of eleven to sixteen. Throughout his life, Brown was regularly ill and chronically depressed.

Encouraged by his family, Brown began apprenticing under the prominent Philadelphia lawyer Alexander Wilcox in 1787. While pursuing a legal career, Brown founded the Belles Lettres Club with his friends William Wood Wilkins and Joseph Bringhurst. In 1789, at the age of eighteen, Brown published the "Rhapsodist" sketches, his first literary works. After six years with Wilcox's firm, Brown left his apprenticeship to try to make a living as a writer, claiming to be "perpetually encumbered by the law" (quoted in Warfel 29).

Initially, Brown wrote but did not publish much. During this period, Brown met William Dunlap and other members of the New York literary society the Friendly Club through Elihu Hubbard Smith, Brown's "closest friend and patron" (Chapman). Brown read his own works-in-progress to Friendly Club members during 1796 and 1797. In early 1798, he published several works including Alcuin, the dialogue on women's rights, and his serial story "The Man at Home."

Brown had traveled between New York and Philadelphia for years, finally moving to New York with Smith during the yellow fever epidemic of July 1798. Unlike his friend and fellow lodger, who died suddenly in September 1798, Brown survived. After Smith's death, "Brown began a frantic period of writing novels (Chapman). He wrote his four major novels - Wieland, Ormond, Arthur Mervyn, and Edgar Huntly - in this eighteen month period.

After publishing Part Two of Arthur Mervyn in 1800 and moving back to Philadelphia, Brown "decided abruptly not to write any more novels" (Chapman). Brown was unable to support himself solely as a writer, so he joined the family mercantile business in 1800. Although he did finish the two sentimental novels Clara Howard and Jane Talbot (both were published in 1801), Mary Chapman argues that after 1800, Brown transitioned from a novelist to an editor and journalist (Chapman).

In April 1799, Brown had been chosen to be editor of the Friendly Club's Monthly Magazine, and American Review, which became the American Review, and Literary Journal in 1801. In 1803, Brown began editing The Literary Magazine, and American Register for Joseph Conrad. Brown then started the American Register, or General Repository of History, Politics, and Science in 1807.

Chapman also notes more personal transformations around the turn of the century, including a "change in his philosophical outlook from religious questioner to orthodox Christian" and Brown's shift from a youthful pro-Jeffersonian among Federalists to a critic of the third president (Chapman).

Brown married Elizabeth Linn on November 19, 1804, with whom he had three sons and a daughter. Her brother was Brown's friend, the Presbyterian minister John Blair Linn. Brown died on February 22, 1810 from advanced tuberculosis.

Daniel Edwards Kennedy (1897-1960) (detailed biography note)

Daniel Edwards Kennedy was born in Brooklyn on August 29, 1897. Kennedy entered Yale in 1903, where he studied under William Lyon Phelps. After graduation he married and, having received a generous inheritance that granted him financial independence, he established a print shop in the basement of his Chestnut Hill, MA home. In 1906, Yale granted him an M.A. in abstentia for his thesis "The Origin and Development of the English Novel" written under Phelps. According to Roger Stoddard, the former Assistant to the Librarian at Harvard's Houghton Library, it was during this time that Kennedy "discovered Charles Brockden Brown and determined to write a critical biography" (Stoddard 13). Robert Hemenway, who worked in the Bibliographical and Textual Center as a Kent State doctoral candidate, reveals that Kennedy "felt [Brown] had been unjustly neglected by the historians of American literature" (Hemenway 16-17). The 635,000 word manuscript for Charles Brockden Brown: His Life and Works was never ready for publication, but because "Kennedy discovered - apparently by himself - almost all the original sources" documenting Brown's life, the unpublished biography proved "invaluable" to the editors of the Bicentennial Edition (Hemenway 17).

Stoddard explains that because "there were no institutional collections of American literature" at the time, "the student of an early American novelist had to collect his own materials, so Kennedy set out to build a library" (13). Highlights of what Stoddard called "one of the most extraordinary collections of American literature ever formed" (11) include two Alcuin pamphlets obtained from Anna Robeson Burr, a descendant of Brown; a copy of the obscure Clara Howard which had belonged to Susan Linn, Brown's sister-in-law; an unrecorded prospectus for American Review; four Brown letters; and three books from Brown's library. After suffering losses in the Great Depression, Kennedy sold many of his books. When Kennedy, who "became quite a recluse" (Stoddard 16), died on January 8, 1960, his children sold the remainder of his library to the Seven Gables bookshop.

The Bibliographical and Textual Center purchased the Kennedy manuscript in 1966. Letters documenting this transaction are available in Box 12, Folder 1. For full list of works cited, please see this finding aid's Bibliography.

Scope and Content

This collection contains source material, bibliographic research, manuscript drafts, and documentary evidence related to the six-volume critical edition The Novels and Related Works of Charles Brockden Brown: Bicentennial Edition published between 1977-1987 by the Kent State University Press under the Modern Language Association Center for Editions of American Authors / Committee on Scholarly Editions. The Bicentennial Edition was produced by the Bibliographical and Textual Center (BTC) under the editorial supervision of Professors Sydney J. Krause and S. W. Reid.

New research on Brown could be supported by this collection which collocates copies (and some originals) of the primary and secondary sources used for the Bicentennial Edition. It includes the unpublished manuscript of Charles Brockden Brown: His Life and Works by Daniel Edwards Kennedy, which was bought by the BTC in 1966. It also makes available several illustrations, photographs, maps, and other visual materials.

By documenting the creation of the Bicentennial Edition through its annotated sources, notes, outlines, and drafts, this collection shows the methodology employed by critical editors. This collection provides access to accession records, shelf lists, card catalogs, indexes, notes, guides and other bibliographic sources on Brown. It includes documentary evidence of the response, from praise to criticism, of the Bicentennial Edition. These materials can be used for broader research about the reception of Charles Brockden Brown and debates around canonicity. The collection documents a period in the history of textual scholarship and in twentieth century literary criticism. These records are especially interesting in light of recent shifts in literary theory and academic practice.

A History of the Bicentennial Edition

The Bibliographical and Textual Center (BTC) was created in the mid-1960s in order to produce the Charles Brockden Brown Bicentennial Edition. In the mid-1970s, the BTC began work on a critical edition of Joseph Conrad and has since expanded to publish work on Beethoven, Robert Browning, and the Taft family. It is now known as the Institute for Bibliography and Editing (IBE). The Charles Brockden Brown project was overseen by two Kent State Professors of English: General Editor Sydney J. Krause and Textual Editor S. W. Reid. Each individual volume features an Historical Essay by the contributing editor and a Textual Essay by Professor Reid. The following six volumes of The Novels and Related Works of Charles Brockden Brown: Bicentennial Editionwere released over ten years:

Wieland or The Transformation: An American Tale. Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (Vol. I) Contributing Editor: Alexander Cowie. 1977. Ormond or The Secret Witness (Vol. II) Contributing Editor: Russel B. Nye. 1982. Arthur Mervyn or Memoirs of the Year 1793. First and Second Parts (Vol. III) Contributing Editor: Norman S. Grabo. 1980. Edgar Huntly or Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker (Vol. IV) Contributing Editor: Sydney J. Krause. 1984. Clara Howard. Jane Talbot (Vol. V) Contributing Editor: Donald A. Ringe. 1986. Alcuin: A Dialogue. Stephen Calvert (Vol. VI ) Contributing Editor: Robert D. Arner. 1987. Three paperback classroom texts were also published: Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin Eds. Sydney J. Krause and S. W. Reid. 1978. Edgar Huntly or Memoirs of A Sleep-Walker Eds. Sydney J. Krause and S. W. Reid. 1986. Arthur Mervyn or Memoirs of the Year 1793. First and Second Parts. Revised Edition Eds. Sydney J. Krause, S. W. Reid, and Norman S. Grabo. 2002.

The "Bicentennial Edition," as the multi-volume endeavor is known, was supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was approved by the Modern Language Association's (MLA) Critical Edition of American Authors (CEAA), the first organization to publish editorial standards and to certify individual volumes. The Bicentennial Edition also bears the seal of the CEAA's successor, the Center for Scholarly Editions (CSE) imprint, which was formed to foster scholarly editions across a wider range of disciplines.

Statement of Arrangement

The collection has been arranged into the following eight series:

• Supporting Documents at the Bibliographical and Textual Center
• Primary Sources: Correspondence
• Primary Sources: Manuscripts
• Primary Sources: Published Materials
• Primary Sources: Books
• Secondary Sources
• Bibliographical and Textual Center Critical Edition
• Daniel Edwards Kennedy Manuscript

Separated Material

For his unpublished biography of Charles Brockden Brown, Daniel Edwards Kennedy collected over forty maps of Philadelphia which he mounted into an oversized bound scrapbook. The collected maps include a reprint of Reed's 1774 map and one entitled "Holmes' half of Province of Pennsylvania." It also includes a table of contents in Kennedy's hand and some non-map material, such as tables of census data. This scrapbook is cataloged in Kent State's online library catalog, LIBRARYsearch, as the Maps for the biography of Charles Brockden Brown, collected by DEK under call # f PS1136 .K55 .

Related Material

Further information on the Kent State University Bibliographical and Textual Center, now the Institute for Bibliography and Editing, can be found in the Institute for Bibliography and Editing records.

Processing Information

For photocopied primary sources, the date given is that of the original. Where folder titles were provided by the Bibliographical and Textual Center or by Daniel Edwards Kennedy, there is a note in the finding aid.

Preferred Citation

Charles Brockden Brown Bicentennial Edition records. Department of Special Collections and Archives. Kent State University Libraries and Media Services.

Custodial History

The Daniel Edwards Kennedy manuscript was purchased in 1966 by the Bibliographical and Textual Center as a source for its six-volume critical edition on Charles Brockden Brown. The rest of the collection was created by and housed in the Bibliographical and Textual Center before arriving at Kent State University Special Collections and Archives.

Subject Headings

The following subjects are found in this collection:

Subjects:

• Criticism, Textual
• Literature--History and criticism
• American literature--18th century
• American literature--19th century

Persons:

• Brown, Charles Brockden, 1771-1810
• Kennedy, Daniel Edwards
• Krause, Sydney J. (Sydney Joseph)
• Reid, S. W.
• Smith, E. H. (Elihu Hubbard), 1771-1798
• Brown, Elizabeth L. (Elizabeth Linn), 1775-1834
• Dunlap, William, 1766-1839
• Allen, Paul, 1775-1826
• Wilkins, William, 1827-1892
• Godwin, William, 1756-1836
• Hemenway, Robert E., 1941-
• Keller, Dean H.
• Clark, David Lee, 1887-1956
• Cowie, Alexander
• Nye, Russel B. (Russel Blaine), 1913-1993
• Grabo, Norman S.
• Ringe, Donald A.
• Arner, Robert D.

Organizations/Corporations:

• Modern Language Association of America. Center for Editions of American Authors

Functions:

• Criticism, Textual
• Editing

Occupations:

• Editors
• Literary critics

Material Types:

• Photocopies
• Typescripts
• Manuscripts, American
• Periodicals
• Notebooks
• Letters (correspondence)

Detailed Description of the Collection