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The Dangers of Seduction in an 18th-Century Novel
‘The Power of Sympathy’ by William Hill Brown
If you ask “What was the first American novel?,” someone might tell you it was William Hill Brown’s late 18th-century book The Power of Sympathy. It’s epistolary—that is, presented as written correspondence between characters—and mainly conveys moral opinions.
In a short preface, the author complains that “ladies” eagerly read amoral novels. In his novel, he announces, “the dangerous consequences of seduction are exposed, and the advantages of female education set forth and recommended.”
If you’re hoping for a plot twist, be assured there’s a little of that too.
Story
Harrington is the surname of a young man who declares himself passionately in love with a girl named Harriot. His father believes he’s too young to marry, so the pair resolve to elope.
Proper reading material
The first part of the novel sermonizes on what girls and women ought to read. Harrington’s friend Worthy, in selecting a book for a young teenager, says that “unless a proper selection is made, one would do better never to read at all.” The elder Harrington, the father, then declares that “our female libraries are overrun” with novels that are “not regulated on the chaste principles of true friendship, rational love, and connubial duty, [which] appear to me totally unfit to form the minds of women, of friends, or of wives.”
Wayward Woman #1
Harriot travels from Boston to Rhode Island, finding her host, Mrs. Martin, pensive and sad. Mrs. Martin’s sister, Ophelia, had an affair with Mr. Martin; retired to the country; gave birth to “a child, at once the son and nephew of Martin”; and finally, when her enraged father tried to force a family confrontation, drank poison. Upon hearing the tale of woe, Harriot’s friend Myra Harrington (her fiance’s sister) replies, gasping: “Surely there is no human vice of so black a die, so fatal in its consequences — or which causes a more general calamity — than that of seducing a female from the path of honour.”
