author
d. 1812
Best known for a wildly popular early American Gothic tale, this journalist-novelist helped bring suspense, romance, and serialized storytelling to U.S. readers in the early 1800s. His work reached a wide audience through newspapers before appearing in book form.
An American writer and journalist active in the early national period, Isaac Mitchell is generally dated to about 1759–1812. He is best remembered for The Asylum, or Alonzo and Melissa, a Gothic novel that first appeared in installments in his Poughkeepsie newspaper, the Political Barometer, in 1804 and was later expanded into book form in 1811.
Mitchell also wrote other fiction, including Albert and Eliza and Melville and Phalez. Modern readers and scholars often note how popular The Asylum became in early America, especially for its mix of romance, danger, and melodrama. That success also led to a tangled publication history, with versions of the story circulating under other names.
Reliable portrait images are hard to confirm for him, so no author photo is included here.