William Hill Brown

William Hill Brown ( * November 1765 in Boston, † September 2, 1793 in Murfreesboro, North Carolina ) was an American writer. He is now in the literature as the author of the first American novel: The Power of Sympathy, or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth ( 1789).

The novel, a romance in the tradition of English sentimentalism in the succession Samuel Richardson, was published anonymously and long erroneously Sarah Wentworth Morgan attributed. The plot of the novel is based on a true story, the incestuous relationship of siblings Sarah Perez and Morgan, who created a scandal to Hills during his lifetime; Hills protagonist commits at the end of the novel as Sarah Morgan suicide.

Brown also wrote the posthumously published novel Ira and Isabella; or, The Natural Children (1807 ), which adopts a similar plot with a happy ending, and some dramas, including the tragedy of West Point Preserved (1797 ) on the British adventurer and spy John André and some poems.

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