Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (A Fragment)
1805
Before the American Gothic had a name, Charles Brockden Brown was already dissecting the darkest corners of the human mind. Carwin first appeared in Brown's earlier novel Wieland as a figure of uncanny power: a man who could manipulate his voice with supernatural precision, appearing to be in two places at once. Memoirs was meant to be his origin story, a fragment that Brown never completed but that haunts American literature nonetheless. The novel follows Carwin's seduction by Ludloe, a charismatic utopian leader who builds a secret society based on principles of radical social engineering. Carwin becomes Ludloe's disciple, learning the arts of voice manipulation not merely as performance but as instrument of control. The fragment traces his entanglement in a world where identity itself becomes mutable, where the line between liberation and manipulation dissolves, and where the promises of utopian reform curdle into something far more sinister. One of the very first American novels ever published, this fragment endures because it asks questions we still cannot answer: what happens when charisma meets ideology, when the utopians become the tyrants, when the voice you hear might not belong to the person speaking? It is essential reading for anyone interested in the dark roots of American literature, the psychology of manipulation, and the fragility of democracy itself.
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“Then will I lay down my head in the lap of death. Hushed will be all my murmurs in the sleep of the grave.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
“Add wings to thy speed, sweet evening; and thou, moon, I charge thee, shroud thy beams at the moment when my Pleyel whispers love. I would not for the world, that the burning blushes, and the mounting raptures of that moment, should be visible.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
“Something whispered that the happiness we at present enjoyed was set on mutable foundations. Death must happen to all.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
“When I lay down the pen the taper of life will expire: my existence will terminate my tale.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
“They refuse to credit my tale; they impute my act to the influence of daemons; they account me an example of the doom me to death and infamy. Have I power to escape this evil? If I have, be sure I will exert it. I will not accept evil at their hand, when I am entitled to good; I will suffer only when I cannot elude suffering.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
“Surely," said I, "there is omnipotence in the cause that changed the views of a man like Carwin. The divinity that shielded me from his attempts will take suitable care of my future safety. Thus to yield to my fears is to deserve that they should be real.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
“Fear me not: the space that severs us is small, and visible succour is distant. You believe yourself completely in my power; that you stand upon the brink of ruin. Such are your groundless fears. I cannot lift a finger to hurt you. Easier it would be to stop the moon in her course than to injure you. The power that protects you would crumble my sinews, and reduce me to a heap of ashes in a moment, if I were to harbour a thought hostile to your safety.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
“All unaware, and in a manner which I had no power to explain, I was pushed from my immoveable and lofty station, and cast upon a sea of troubles.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
“I said to myself, we must die. Sooner or later, we must disappear for ever from the face of the earth. Whatever be the links that hold us to life, they must be broken. This scene of existence is, in all its parts, calamitous. The greater number is oppressed with immediate evils, and those, the tide of whose fortunes is full, how small is their portion of enjoyment, since they know that it will terminate.””
— Charles Brockden Brown
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<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/memoirs-of-carwin-the-biloquist-a-fragment-e742cda3-4a57-4d17-90ed-010759037298"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (A Fragment) by Charles Brockden Brown free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/memoirs-of-carwin-the-biloquist-a-fragment-e742cda3-4a57-4d17-90ed-010759037298)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/memoirs-of-carwin-the-biloquist-a-fragment-e742cda3-4a57-4d17-90ed-010759037298][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (A Fragment) by Charles Brockden Brown free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/memoirs-of-carwin-the-biloquist-a-fragment-e742cda3-4a57-4d17-90ed-010759037298Cite this book
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Brown, Charles Brockden. Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (A Fragment). Lex, lex-books.com/book/memoirs-of-carwin-the-biloquist-a-fragment-e742cda3-4a57-4d17-90ed-010759037298.Brown, C. B. (1805). Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (A Fragment). Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/memoirs-of-carwin-the-biloquist-a-fragment-e742cda3-4a57-4d17-90ed-010759037298Brown, Charles Brockden. Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist (A Fragment). Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/memoirs-of-carwin-the-biloquist-a-fragment-e742cda3-4a57-4d17-90ed-010759037298.
