The fifth volume in the Collected Writings of Charles Brockden Brown presents, for the first time, the entirety of the Historical Sketches, Brown’s final major fiction (1805-1806), along with six earlier fragments. Previously accessible only in scattered sources, archives, and to specialized readers, the Sketches are here assembled in a single volume and edited for the first time, while four of the six fragments are transcribed from manuscripts and likewise appear here for the first time. The encyclopedic, formally experimental Sketches are Brown’s final long fiction and represent the culmination of his career long interest in creating a hybrid, historical-fictional genre that explores the contradictions and potentials of the revolutionary age, addressing questions including systems of government and political economy, religion, colonialism and slavery, gender inequality and female subordination, ideology and consent, and historical form itself. The earlier fragments, all preliminary to fictions never fully realized, trace the development of Brown’s interest in historical-fictional forms, Utopia as a genre, and imaginary global topographies. The volume’s historical texts are fully annotated and accompanied by historical and textual essays, as well as an apparatus detailing provenance, publication history, emendations, and corrections. The scholarly work informing the volume establishes significant new findings concerning these texts, which stand alongside the better-known novels as Brown’s most ambitious and significant fictions.
