Nationality and The Novel: The Rise of Charlotte Temple in America (Expanded Edition)

In searching the Internet for images related to Charlotte Temple, I came across an article by Michael Winship entitled "Two Early American Bestsellers: Rowson's Charlotte Temple and Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin." As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m new to the realm of the early American novel. So I was fascinated to learn that Charlotte Temple was first published in Britain by Minerva Press; it wasn’t published in America until three years later. 

Now Davidson does mention this fact in Chapter Five. But her agenda in Chapter Two is to look at the origins of the book in regards to its materiality and economic status, so discussing Charlotte Temple's publishing history—so closely tied to how it materialized (on multiple levels) in America—seems relevant here, too. 

It has occurred to me that I am perhaps discussing things with which some of my readers are all-too-familiar, and for that, I do sincerely apologize. I likewise apologize if my proceeding discussion of Charlotte Temple is ill-informed, ungrounded, myopic, or quite simply wrong. It may well be; my knowledge (or is it information?) is limited. But, as I said, fascination is in progress here (here being in my mind). As Winship says, “the question of Charlotte Temple’s ‘Americanness’ is a vexed one.” 

My agenda, then, is to figure out what made Charlotte Temple get stamped as an American—as opposed to a British—novel. And is that stamp appropriate?

According to Winship, Charlotte Temple received little attention in England. I surely believe that—the Minerva Press churned out books of “light literature” at a rapid pace, and the subject matter of Charlotte Temple was hardly anything new on that side of the pond. (If you’d like more information about Minerva Press and eighteenth and nineteenth century publishing in England, check out Richard Altick’s English Common Reader, Second Edition.) 

But then Charlotte Temple came to America. Davidson discusses the American book industry as a triadic interrelationship among the writer, the printer/publisher/marketer, and the reader. So let's look at each of these industry components as they relate specifically to Charlotte Temple. 

1.                          The writer. One Susanna Rowson. Rowson was born in England, but spent most of her life in America. Davidson considers Rowson to be only “marginally American” (163). Winship makes note of her curious signature on the title page of the first American edition—“Mrs. Rowson, of the New Theatre, Philadelphia.” Winship asserts that this signature “seems rather to point to the work’s racy nature, written by an actress, than to the author’s American residence.” Should we read so much into the signature? By associating herself with an American theatre, but not with America itself, is Rowson setting the stage (pun intended) for some kind of subversive strategy that exists within the novel itself? That question aside, it seems we can at best give Rowson the label of British-American. Or a marginal American, if you'd prefer. Thus, it does not seem to be Charlotte Temple’s author that makes it an American novel.

2.                          Of course, it is doubtful Rowson had much control over the title page; any subversive strategies surrounding the signature likely would have been devised by the publisher. Davidson nicely details how a book “was a product of both the writer’s and the printer’s art” (79). How did printers view Charlotte Temple? The answer to that question, on at least one level, is quite easy: they viewed it as a British book, a book not subject to American copyright laws. Would Charlotte Temple have become as widely popular had it fallen under the private domain of a single printer? Winship asserts that “There can be little doubt that Charlotte Temple's great success in America depended on the fact that, as a work in the public domain, it was freely available for reprinting by any and all American printers and publishers who cared to offer an edition—and many did throughout the nineteenth century." The aforementioned title page—in addition to assigning an ambiguous label to Rowson—also includes a quotation from Romeo & Juliet. (I’m pretty sure the latter is the title of a British play, but then, I’m hardly familiar with early British works, either.) From a marketing standpoint, there seemed to be a reason for blurring the nationality associated with this book. Could it be that publishers were afraid it would be thought too subversive, too much of a scandal? Whatever the answer may be, the printer/publisher/marketer seems not to provide us with an answer to what made Charlotte Temple an American novel.

3.                          That leaves us, then, with the American readers. How did they respond to this book? Winship writes that, “as a tale of seduction and innocence lost, yet in the end somehow forgiven and redeemed, it [Charlotte Temple] struck a chord with American readers, especially during a period that saw the new nation attempt to establish itself culturally in a Eurocentric world that viewed America as innocent of artistic and moral tradition.” Indeed, Charlotte Temple is commonly hailed as the first American bestseller (Winship’s article provides a nice overview of the origin of this word). American readers related to it, learned from it, were empowered by it—and that seems to be, then, what has made Charlotte Temple come to be known as an American novel. And within the context of the time in which it was originally published, having the support and devotion of American readers certainly seems a solid enough foundation upon which a novel may stand and declare itself American.

So Charlotte Temple’s American stamp is appropriate. Not a subversive conclusion on my part, to be sure. Though to be honest, even if I thought that "American" wasn't an appropriate stamp, I might have been too afraid to say so. Even asking this question in the first place had me quickening my (typing) pace and looking behind my back for McCarthy.