Somnambulism and Other Stories

Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) is well known as the first American novelist of significance, the predecessor of Poe and Hawthorne, and the first professional American man of letters. Largely unknown are the short stories he wrote. They have been identified, over a long period of time, by a number of leading American Brown scholars and the editor of this volume. “Somnambulism and other Stories” is the first collection of short stories by C.B. Brown ever published. It offers a critical text of eleven stories and contains a full documentation of all the evidence that led to their attribution.

It is the second of a projected series of critical and annotated editions of selected writings of C.B. Brown which focus on texts not contained in the Bicentennial Edition of “The Novels and” “Related Works of Charles Brockden Brown.” It aims at widening the bibliographical and textual basis for the study of Brown’s works and making his hitherto unknown or neglected writings accessible to the student of American literature.