It was started in 1797 and completed by March 1798, when an “Excerpt” was published in The Weekly Magazine of Original Essays, Fugitive Pieces, and Interesting Intelligence.
On March 17, 1798, an advertisement appeared in The Weekly Magazine for the novel entitled Sky-Walk, or, The Man Unknown to Himself: An American Tale.
Watters died of yellow fever and Sky-Walk was left with executors who refused to finish printing it due to the unreliability of its success, as Brown was a new author.
[4][5] Sky-Walk was circulated among Brockden Brown's friends, and William Dunlap and Elihu Hubbard Smith each responded to the novel in their diaries in April 1798.
From their commentary it could be gathered that Sky-Walk contained elements of somnambulism, or sleepwalking, and featured the landscape of Delaware, though whether or not it included mention of the Lenni Lenape tribe (a major concern in Edgar Huntly) remains in contention [2][5] Following the publication of the extract, a correspondent wrote to the magazine inquiring after the title of the novel.
The respondent explained that, “‘Sky-Walk’ represented ‘a popular corruption of ‘Ski Wakee,’ or Big Spring”, the Native American name of the Delaware setting that Brown uses in the novel.
This response may indicate that Brown had at least started to develop a concern for the Lenni Lenape tribe in Sky-Walk, though it may not have been as major of a theme as it became in Edgar Huntly.
The Irishman, later named Annesley by the narrator, is married and has two children, and quickly realizes his dream of ending his profession with enough income to return to Ireland and support his family.
The narrator, disgusted with the creditor, attempts to locate Annesley's stolen property, but to no avail, and his own income is insufficient to assist his friend.
Though Brown did indeed draw on real-life instances for his novels, such as the James Yates murders and the Yellow Fever endemic, in the case of Sky-Walk or Edgar Huntly, the authenticity of this article is held in doubt.
Brown had taken up the idea of sleepwalking as a source of psychological horror but his concerns with the recently revolutionized America are also apparent in both Sky-Walk and Edgar Huntly.
The notes of William Dunlap and Elihu Smith corroborate that Sky-Walk had focused on somnambulism as its major theme, though the published extract does not hint at this.
Charles Brockden Brown lived through the American Revolutionary War, and his concerns for America and its recently revolutionized ideals are apparent in many of his works.