The Official Library of JP Brown

Author: Brown, William Hill

Usually considered to be the first American novel; William Hill Brown addressed The Power of Sympathy to “The Young Ladies of United Columbia.” The Power of Sympathy displays the themes of love and sentimentality as well as seduction and its evils. It calls out to young women as a sort of educational guide against seduction.

The Power of Sympathy is written in correspondence: several letters between friends and lovers. Though a few storylines intertwine throughout the novel, the main plot takes place between five main characters: Thomas Harrington, his sister Myra Harrington, Myra’s friend Harriot Fawcet, Thomas’ friend Jack Worthy, and Mrs. Eliza Holmes, a widow and common friend of all the aforementioned characters.

The first few letters of Brown’s novel reveal that Thomas Harrington has fallen for Miss Fawcet. Though Thomas’ father disapproves with his young love, he continues to pursue Harriot. Worthy writes to Mrs. Holmes and Myra Harrington expressing his love for Miss Harrington and his intention to marry her: they become engaged.

As Eliza Holmes becomes aware of the growing love between Thomas and Harriot, she becomes alarmed and decides to expose a deep family secret to Myra, Thomas’ sister. Mrs. Holmes reveals that Harriot is in fact Thomas and Myra’s third sibling. Mr. Harrington, their father, at one point had had an affair out of marriage with Maria Fawcet. The birth of Mr. Harrington’s bastard daughter had to be kept a secret to maintain his family’s honor, so Eliza’s mother-in-law, the late Mrs. Holmes, took Maria and her child, Harriot, into her home. Later, Maria became ill and died, leaving Harriot with a family friend by the name of Mrs. Francis.

Upon receiving the news of this family secret, Harriot is devastated: she realizes that she is in love with her own brother. She dies soon after. Harrington follows suit, taking his own life out of depression from lost love and his frustration in falling for his own sister.

The last letter of the novel is written by Jack Worthy to Eliza Holmes. He explains the funeral of the two sibling-lovers whose gravestone-monument reads: “And Sympathy united, whom Fate divides.”