ABSTRACT
The English radical writers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and his own Quaker background, were key elements in the development of novels written in the volatile context of early republicanism. Brown edited and contributed to the Literary Magazine and American Register and the American Register, or General Repository of History, Politics, and Science. Whether the tale presented in this book will be classed with the ordinary or frivolous sources of amusement, or be ranked with the few productions whose usefulness secures to them a lasting reputation, the reader must be permitted to decide. If history furnishes one parallel fact, it is sufficient vindication of the Writer; but most readers will probably recollect an authentic case, remarkably similar to that of Wieland. It will be necessary to add, that this narrative is addressed, in an epistolary form, by the Lady whose story it contains, to a small number of friends, whose curiosity, with regard to it, had been greatly awakened.
