By Charles Brockden Brown this novel was first published in 1798 and is the first and most famous American Gothic novel.

Set around the time of the American Revolutionary Wars it tells the story of the Wieland family, the father was a German immigrant who founded his own religion that failed causing him to spontaneously combust after which he soon dies.

His children all begin to hear voices, affairs take place, followed by a few murders and a suicide and so the story continues...