ABSTRACT

Isaac Mitchell's Alonzo and Melissa originally appeared as a serialized novel in the Poughkeepsie weekly Political Barometer in 1804. Focusing on Isaac Mitchell's Alonzo and Melissa, The author identifies the decisive features of this process of the Americanization of Gothic novels in early American literature. Research on the effects of the Gothic on early American literature almost exclusively focuses on these writers as Allan Lloyd-Smith's American Gothic Literature testifies. Yet, 'the popular audience was much more interested in terrors with a rational explanation', as Mussell relates. Therefore, an analysis of popular early American Gothic novels should focus on writers who follow the tradition of the explained supernatural. One novel that observes this pattern is Isaac Mitchell's Alonzo and Melissa. Thus, the two articles with an exclusive focus on the novel reverse the conclusion drawn by most anthologies and literary histories and highlight the novel's Americanness as opposed to the derivative character it is usually attributed.