Group of 19th Century steel bookplates, engravings of author Charles Brockden Brown, Historican William H Prescott & David Ramsay, M.D. 6" X 10" each. * two of the pair with scattered foxing, per photos. Charles Brockden Brown ( 1771 - 1810 ) of Philidelphia was an American novelist, historian, and editor of the Early National period. He is generally regarded by scholars as the most important American novelist before James Fenimore Cooper. David Ramsay, M.D. (1749 –1815) was an American physician, public official, and historian from Charleston, South Carolina. He was one of the first major historians of the American Revolutionary War. During the Revolution he served in the South Carolina legislature until he was captured by the British. After his release he served as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1782–1783 and again in 1785–1786. Afterwards he served in the state House and Senate until retiring from public service. In 1803, Ramsay was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. He was murdered in 1815 by a mentally ill man whom Ramsay had examined as a physician, making him the first American politician to be assassinated. William H. Prescott (1796-1859) American Scientific Historian & Author; Grandson of Revolutionary War Officer William Prescott, Commander of a Regiment of Minute-Men.