Brown (1771-1810) was America's first professional man of letters. Brown's novels are enactments of psychological processes, tracing the murky paths by which we surrender our need for omniscience, restrain our underlying savagery, make peace with out sexual identity, and overcome the destructive effects of egotism in assuming social maturity. Grabo's work is a radical interpretation of Brown's fiction, and he reveals Brown to be a conscious and consistent artist.

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