Clara Howard was the second-to-last novel published by Charles Brockden Brown. First published in 1801, the novel is both an epistolary novel and a novel of manners which diverges, alongside the novel Jane Talbot from earlier novels by Brown which were more intense and radical Gothic fiction. Critic Paul Worthington calls these novels a natural progression of Brown's quest for a perfect novel form, despite their divergence in themes. While other critics where extremely negative about this change.