literary historical figure? Who is he?
One of the (though not
the) earliest and most influential of American novelists:
Charles Brockden Brown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And yes, Lobo, I would strongly disagree. I do agree that one should go into Brown without any particular expectations, as his work can often be a bit difficult for a modern reader to get into; the novel at that period was a rather different animal than it has been for some time now, and one has to readjust a bit to get the full rewards of such... yet at least some of Brown's novels are well worth exploring.
Wieland, despite a somewhat discursive tendency, has much of power to it even today, and some of the scenes in there remain both haunting and poignant (not to mention eerie).
The Memoirs of Carwen, the Biloquist, is less interesting as a tale, though it has its own merits as the "backstory" of the character from Wieland, and as a novel of social criticism.
Arthur Mervyn also has some quite powerful passages, though weakened by far too much didacticism and a rather rambling structure. The same can be said for
Edgar Huntley, though it is a bit more disciplined, overall. All are flawed, all are definitely older in feel, but each of them has a fair amount to offer, I'd say.
I think for you, however,
Wieland would be the main one you'd find interesting, as the bits in the others which might interest you are very slight in comparison to the rest of the material, which is likely to be
anything but to your interest.
