Novelist, Lawyer

Voice of the New Republic.

Hugh Henry Brackenridge began his literary career as coauthor of The Rising Glory of America (1772), a poem so aptly expressing the optimism of several generations of Americans that it became the prototype for dozens of other patriotic poems, including Joel Barlow's The Prospect of Peace (1778) and Timothy Dwight's America (1780). Brackenridge is best known, however, for his mock-epic novel Modern Chivalry (1792-1815), often called the first evenhanded satire on American democracy.

Early Life.

Born in Scotland, Brackenridge and his family immigrated in 1753 to Pennsylvania, where they eked out a living on a small farm in rural York County. After five years of teaching in frontier schools he enrolled at Princeton University in 1768. At graduation ceremonies in September 1771 he and his friend Philip Freneau delivered their poem The Rising Glory of America, which was published in Philadelphia the following...