Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) was our first American novelist. The earliest citizen of the young nation to support himself by 'the profession of literature, ' Brown used the American scene as background for his fiction. Arthur Mervyn, his third published novel, has long puzzled students and scholars with its seeming diffuseness, resulting from its original serial publication. Critics agree, however, that the power of this novel lies not so much in its portrait of 'right virtue, ' which was Brown's primary aim, as in its realistic descriptions of the yellow fever epidemic and the ensuing panic that swept Philadelphia in the summer of 1793. The ambiguities of Arthur Mervyn's character and the precarious nature of the revolutionary 1790s make this novel a particularly apt subject for lively discussion and future scholarship and make this revised edition an excellent classroom text. This paperback edition reprints the novel's text and historical overview of Volume III of the highly regarded Bicentennial Edition of The Novels of Charles Brockden Brown, edited by Sydney J. Krause and S.W. Reid, and includes an updated editorial note and bibliography.