Short Fiction

Abstract

This chapter on Charles Brockden Brown’s short fiction provides an overview of eight tales written by Brown and published in various magazines, offering interpretative discussion of the texts and how they fit into the larger Brown oeuvre. These works deal with historical events, state-sponsored and individual acts of violence, secrecy, sensibility, gender roles, and insanity. Brown develops in these tales themes commonly found in his novels, and he often employs some of his favorite narrative devices, gothic or otherwise. Like his other writings, his stories reveal how Brown absorbed the transatlantic intellectual currents of his day and presented them effectively within a compact space.