James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels
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2 Taylor, William Cooper’s Town, 372–75.
3 James Franklin Beard, ed., The Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper, 6 vols. (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960–1968), vol. 1:6, 17–18, 23, 25n1, 26n3, 32; Susan Fenimore Cooper, “Small Family Memories,” in James Fenimore Cooper (1858–1938), ed., Correspondence of James Fenimore Cooper, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922), vol. 1:9–12.
4 Timothy Dwight, Travels in New-England and New-York, 4 vols. (London: William Baynes & Son, 1823), vol. 3:471–72; Harry M. Ward, Between the Lines: Banditti of the American Revolution (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2002), 1–32. Westchester, of course, was also the scene of the war’s most notorious case of espionage and secret identity. On September 23, 1780, county militiamen intercepted a British major, John André, disguised as a civilian and returning from a covert meeting with the traitor Benedict Arnold, then commanding the American garrison at West Point. The militiamen had a reputation as plunderers of uncertain loyalties, but they proved themselves as Patriots by rejecting André’s bribe and turning him in to their commander. Alerted to André’s capture the following morning, Arnold quickly made good his escape to the British lines. André was later executed.
5 S. F. Cooper, “Small Family Memories,” 38–39; James D. Wallace, Early Cooper and His Audience (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 29–62, 86–87; Beard, ed., Letters and Journals, vol. 1:66.
6 Beard, ed., Letters and Journals, vol. 1:66 (quotations); S. F. Cooper, “Small Family Memories,” 39; Warren Motley, The American Abraham: James Fenimore Cooper and the Frontier Patriarch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 55–57; Wayne Franklin, The New World of James Fenimore Cooper (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 26–28.
7 James Franklin Beard, “Cooper and the Revolutionary Mythos,” Early American Literature, vol. 11 (Spring 1976): 84–104; Beard, ed., Letters and Journals, vol. 1:44 (quotation); George Dekker, James Fenimore Cooper: The American Scott (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1967), 10–13.
8 Beard, ed., Letters and Journals, vol. 1:44 (“task”); Cathy N. Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 15–37; Sacvan Bercovitch, ed., The Cambridge History of American Literature, 1590–1820 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 623–35, 644, 676; Cooper quoted in Jeffrey Steinbrink, “Cooper’s Romance of the Revolution: Lionel Lincoln and the Lessons of Failure,” Early American Literature, vol. 11 (Winter 1976–1977): 337 (“cornfield”).
9 Harvey Birch quoted in James Fenimore Cooper, The Spy: A Tale of The Neutral Ground (New York: AMS Press, 2002), 415; Franklin, New World, 41–42; Charles Hansford Adams, “The Guardian of the Law”: Authority and Identity in James Fenimore Cooper (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990), 25–28.
10 Washington and Birch quoted in Cooper, The Spy, 414, 416.
11 The New York American, Jan. 15, 1824, quoted in James P. Elliott, “Historical Introduction,” in Cooper, The Spy, xiii; Wallace, Early Cooper, 108–9; Michael Kammen, A Season of Youth: The American Revolution and the Historical Imagination (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), 21, 130.
12 Beard, ed., Letters and Journals, vol. 1:83–84, 93–95; S. F. Cooper, “Small Family Memories,” 50; Robert E. Spiller, Fenimore Cooper: Critic of His Times (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963), 76–86, 92–94; Motley, American Abraham, 60–64.
13 Quotation from Cooper, The Spy, 13; Beard, “Cooper and the Revolutionary Mythos,” 89–90; Wallace, Early Cooper, 84–116, 171–84; Kammen, Season of Youth, 149; John P. McWilliams, Jr., Political Justice in a Republic: James Fenimore Cooper’s America (Berkeley, Calif.: 1972), 60–61.
14 Lionel Lincoln was Cooper’s fifth novel, following The Pilot (1824), which succeeded The Pioneers (1823); Steinbrink, “Cooper’s Romance of the Revolution,” 336–43; George Dekker, James Fenimore Cooper the Novelist (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967), 38–39; John P. McWilliams, “Revolt in Massachusetts: The Midnight March of Lionel Lincoln,” in W. M. Verhoeven, ed., James Fenimore Cooper: New Historical and Literary Criticism (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1993): 89–108.
15 For more on this theme, see Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016).
THE SPY
A Tale of The Neutral Ground
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land.—”
Scott.
To James Aitchison
[1821]
ALTHOUGH we are not natives of the same country, I feel that I can safely offer to your notice a work, which has been chiefly written with a view to induce love to my own. Attachment to the land of our nativity, is a sentiment so intimately blended with our best feelings, that should I have discovered any weakness in the exhibition of this national partiality, I feel confident, that you, at least, will not judge me harshly; for your liberality to this country is untainted with any irreverence for the institutions of the land of our common ancestors. If I find reasons, in your candor, to believe you will do justice to my merited eulogiums, I can equally hope for your lenity, where habit has blinded me to defects.
We have spent many pleasant hours together, and I hope, while perusing these pages, you may experience some portion of that satisfaction, which has, I trust, hitherto attended our association. With the best wishes for your welfare,
I remain,
Dear Sir,
Your assured friend,
—— ———
Preface
[1821]
* * *
THERE ARE several reasons why an American, who writes a novel, should choose his own country for the scene of his story—and there are more against it. To begin with the—pros—the ground is untrodden, and will have all the charms of novelty; as yet but one pen of celebrity has been employed among us in this kind of writing; and as the author is dead, and beyond the hopes and fears of literary rewards and punishments, his countrymen are beginning to discover his merit—but we forget, the latter part of the sentence should have been among the—contras. The very singularity of the circumstance, gives the book some small chance of being noticed abroad, and our literature is much like our wine—vastly improved by travelling. Then, the patriotic ardor of the country, will insure a sale to the most humble attempts to give notoriety to any thing national, as we have the strongest assurances our publishers’ account of profit and loss will speedily show. Heaven forbid, that this don’t prove to be like the book itself—a fiction. And lastly, an Author may be fairly supposed to be better able to delineate character, and to describe scenes, where he is familiar with both, than in countries where he has been nothing more than a traveller. Now for the contras—we will begin by removing all the reasons in favour of the step. As there has been but one writer of this description hitherto, a new candidate for literary honours of this kind, would be compared with that one, and unfortunately he is not the rival that every man would select. Then, although the English critics not only desire, but invite works that will give an account of American manners, we are sadly afraid they mean nothing but Indian manners; we are apprehensive that the same palate which can relish the cave scene in “Edgar Huntly,” because it contains an American, a savage, a wild cat, and a tomahawk, in a conjunction that never did, nor ever will occur—will revolt at descriptions in this country, that portray love as any thing but a brutal passion—patriotism as more than money-making—or men and women without wool. We write this with all due deference to our much esteemed acquaintance, Mr. Caesar Thompson, a character we presume to be well known to the few who read this introduction; for nobody looks at a preface until he is at a loss to discover from the book itself, what it is the author means. Then touching the reason, which is built on the hope of support from patriotic pride
, we are almost ashamed to say, that the foreign opinion of our love of country, is nearer the truth than we affected to believe in the foregoing sentence. As for the last reason in favour of an American scene, we are fearful that others are as familiar with their homes as we are ourselves, and that consequently the very familiarity will breed contempt; besides, if we make any mistakes every body will know it. Now we conceive the moon to be the most eligible spot in which to lay the scene of a fashionable modern novel, for then there would be but very few who could dispute the accuracy of the delineations; and could we but have obtained the names of some conspicuous places in that planet, we think we should have ventured on the experiment. It is true, that when we suggested the thing to the original of our friend Caesar, he obstinately refused to sit any longer if his picture was to be transported to any such heathenish place. We combatted the opinions of the black with a good deal of pertinacity, until we discovered the old fellow suspected the moon to be somewhere near Guinea, and that his opinion of the luminary was something like European notions of our States—that it was not a fit residence for a gentleman. But there is still another class of critics, whose smiles we most covet, but whose frowns we most expect to encounter—we mean our own fair. There are those who are hardy enough to say that women love novelty; and a proper respect to our own reputation for discernment, compels us to abstain from controverting this opinion. The truth is, that a woman is a bundle of sensibilities, and these are qualities which exist chiefly in the fancy. Certain moated castles, draw-bridges, and a kind of classic nature, are much required by these imaginative beings. The artificial distinctions of life also have their peculiar charms with the softer sex, and there are many of them who think the greatest recommendation a man can have to their notice, is the ability to raise themselves in the scale of genteel preferment. Very many are the French valets, Dutch barbers, and English tailors, who have received their patents of nobility from the credulity of the American fair; and occasionally we see a few of them, whirling in the vortex left by the transit of one of these aristocratical meteors, across the plane of our confederation. In honest truth, we believe, that one novel with a lord in it, is worth two without a lord, even for the nobler sex—meaning us men. Charity forbids our insinuating that any of our patriots respond to the longings of the other sex, with an equal desire to bask in the sunshine of royal favour; and least of all, may we venture to insinuate, that the longing generally exists in a ratio exactly proportioned to the violence with which they lavish their abuse on the institutions of their forefathers.—There is ever a reaction in human feelings, and it was only when he found them unattainable, that Æsop makes the fox call the grapes sour!
We would not be understood as throwing the gauntlet to our fair countrywomen, by whose opinions it is that we expect to stand or fall; we only mean to say, that if we have got no lords and castles in the book, it is because there are none in the country. We heard there was a noble within fifty miles of us, and went that distance to see him, intending to make our hero look as much like him as possible; when we brought home his description, the little gipsey, who sat for Fanny, declared she would’nt have him if he were a king. Then we travelled a hundred miles to see a renowned castle to the east, but, to our surprise, found it had so many broken windows, was such an out-door kind of a place, that we should be wanting in Christian bowels to place any family in it during the cold months: in short, we were compelled to let the yellow haired girl choose her own suitor, and to lodge the Whartons in a comfortable, substantial, and unpretending cottage. We repeat we mean nothing disrespectful to the fair—we love them next to ourselves—our book—our money—and a few other articles. We know them to be good-natured, good-hearted—ay, and good-looking hussies enough: and heartily wish, for the sake of one of them, we were a lord, and had a castle in the bargain.
We do not absolutely aver, that the whole of our tale is true; but we honestly believe that a good portion of it is; and we are very certain, that every passion recorded in the volumes before the reader, has and does exist; and let us tell them that is more than they can find in every book they read. We will go farther, and say that they have existed within the county of West-Chester, in the State of New-York, and United States of America, from which fair portion of the globe we send our compliments to all who read our pages—and love to those who buy them.
Preface to the Second Edition
[1822]
* * *
THE AUTHOR of this work will not attempt to describe the satisfaction with which he listened to his publishers, when they informed him, that his interests required a second edition of the tale. He cheerfully commenced the task of correcting the errors, that from carelessness, in both himself and his printers, were admitted into the former edition;—he thinks this has been done.
The Author is grateful that he is not without a number of friends—at least if all who give him good advice are entitled to that appellation. He has been favored with numberless valuable hints, by the aid of which, the book might be made excellent. Some thought the preface ought to be omitted, and others have declared, the last chapter to be intolerable; several have hinted, that Sarah must certainly be married, and have given him the choice between Dr. Sitgreaves and Tom Mason. One very judicious friend took the author aside, and, in direct terms, and with an interest in the subject that was highly gratifying, said, that Betty must be killed and the lamentation come from the trooper. Not a few have pointed out a snug place where a chapter could be introduced, that might contain an account of the honeymoon of Frances, together with some little interesting particulars of her nursery. Numbers complain of Harper as an impious attempt to describe a character that would baffle the powers of Shakspeare, and add that the illustrious individual whom he is intended to represent, was never known to eat, drink, or sleep, during the whole war.
The Author has treasured all these valuable hints, and intends giving them to the world at a future day as an original work.
In the mean time, for the want of a better, he must offer the old subject to the public, written in his own manner, and without the aid of printer’s journeymen, who had much too large a hand in the first edition.
The Author believes that most of the good will, with which “The Spy” has been received is owing to “love of country.” If he has in any degree contributed to this feeling, his principal object is attained.
To James Aitchison
[1822]
I AVAIL MYSELF with great pleasure of the opportunity that is offered to me, of again manifesting the esteem which I entertain for you. I repeat the assurances of my regard the more readily, because there are those who are anxious to interpret some of the incidents in this fiction, to the disadvantage of the British character. To you, who know my private sentiments on all subjects, it will be unnecessary to say, that national illiberality is not among my foibles; or that I am in the smallest degree insensible to the many valuable qualities which form the groundwork of an Englishman’s virtues. I think the book itself is my justification on this point. If there be any individual criminality portrayed, that is not to be traced to the faults of our common nature, under the operation of peculiar circumstances, I am not conscious of it; and I am aware that all Englishmen, who, like yourself, are educated, liberal, and intelligent, will readily admit, that less offensive matter could not easily be introduced in a tale, professedly written with a view to draw the imaginations of our readers of fiction, from the contemplation of English scenes, to the homebred virtues of their own fire-sides. That there are Col. Wellmeres in every army, any man in the least acquainted with life, will readily admit;—that I represented him as your countryman, was owing to the fact, that it was against your country that my own was, at the time of my tale, contending.
Our intimacy has existed many years, and I sincerely hope that it will so continue, until one of us may cease to live.
Assuredly your friend,
—— ———.
Pref
ace to the Third Edition
[1822]
* * *
IT WOULD BE affectation to retain in this edition of our book, a preface, that professes to doubt of its favourable reception; we find ourselves, therefore, compelled to write something new.
We are told by the Booksellers, that the public is pleased with the tale, and we take this occasion to say, that we are delighted with the public. We hope that this reciprocity of good-will may continue.
Many people think, that as the United States is, in the way of works of fiction, untrodden ground, it is a fine field for the pen of an author. We can only speak of it as we have found it. It is true, that we are a people composed of emigrants from every country of the Christian world:—but they did not come here by chance, nor do they stay here through necessity. They emigrated to improve their temporal conditions and they remain, because they have been successful. When men assemble with such commendable intentions, and under circumstances that afford a just ground for hope, whatever is peculiar in customs, is soon merged in the expedients, which the most ingenious invent for their mutual benefit. It is a general remark amongst travellers, that, contrary to their expectations, they find less originality of character in this country than in England. They make the comparison with England, because we are parts of the same people; and the surprise is occasioned, that so unexpected a result should proceed from the extraordinary freedom of our government. If by originality they mean oddness and eccentricity, the observation is just; but if invention, quickness to remedy evils, and boldness of thought be intended, it is wrong.