He was born in Philadelphia, on January 17, 1771, into an old Quaker family. Brown was the youngest of four sons. Through out his childhood and his life he was most often sick. Being physically weak Brown was very strong in his studies. He went to Friends’ Grammar School. There he acquired a broad classical education. Basically all Brown did as a child was read and he was very smart. When he was 10 he said, "Why does he call me boy?" referring to a visitor, who had just left the room, "does he not know that it is neither size nor age, but understanding, that makes the man? I could ask him an hundred questions, none of which he could answer." By the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to Alexander Wilcox to study law. But Brown had other interests. While still in his teens he was co
Brown then moved back to Philadelphia and published his first book, “Alcuin: A Dialogue on the Rights of Woman”, at the age of 27. It was a plea for woman’s rights far before its time. In this same year 1798 he published his first novel “Wieland: Or the Transformation.” Everett A. Duycknick, a critic of this book wrote in 1856, “Due credit must at the same time be given to him (Brown) for resolution and bravery. He was not only the first person in America who ventured to pursue literature as a profession, but almost the first to make an attempt in the field of imaginative writing, disconnected with the advocacy of any question of national or local interest.” Soon after Brown returned to New York and became an editor of the Monthly Magazine and American Review. In addition to his work on the
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