James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “You will then leave us?” said the young baronet, smiling for the first time in many-a-day. “You know that this cruelty”—

  He was interrupted by a loud hem from Polwarth, who advanced, and taking the hand of the lady, repeated his wish to retain it for ever, for at least the fiftieth time. She heard him, in silence, and with much apparent respect, though a smile stole upon her gravity, before he had ended. She then thanked him with suitable grace, and gave a final and decided refusal. The captain sustained the repulse like one who had seen much similar service, and politely lent his assistance to help the obdurate girl into her boat. Here she was received by a young man who was apparelled like an American officer. Sir Lionel thought the bloom on her cheek deepened, as her companion, assiduously, drew a cloak around her form to protect it from the chill of the water. Instead of returning to the town, the boat, which bore a flag, pulled directly for the shore occupied by the Americans. The following week Agnes was united to this gentleman, in the bosom of her own family. They soon after took quiet possession of the house in Tremont-street, and of all the large real estate left by Mrs. Lechmere, which had been previously bestowed on her, by Cecil, as a dowry.

  As soon as his passengers appeared, the captain of the frigate communicated with his admiral, by signal, and received, in return, the expected order to proceed in the execution of his trust. In a few minutes the swift vessel was gliding by the heights of Dorchester, training her guns on the adverse hills, and hurriedly spreading her canvass as she passed. The Americans, however, looked on in silence, and she was suffered to gain the ocean, unmolested, when she made the best of her way to England, with the important intelligence of the intended evacuation.

  She was speedily followed by the fleet, since which period the long-oppressed and devoted town of Boston has never been visited by an armed enemy.

  During their passage to England, sufficient time was allowed Lionel, and his gentle companion, to reflect on all that had occurred. Together, and in the fullest confidence, they traced the wanderings of intellect which had so closely and mysteriously connected the deranged father with his impotent child; and as they reasoned, by descending to the secret springs of his disordered impulses, they were easily enabled to divest the incidents we have endeavoured to relate, of all their obscurity and doubt.

  The keeper who had been sent in quest of the fugitive madman, never returned to his native land. No offers of forgiveness could induce the unwilling agent in the death of the Baronet, to trust his person, again, within the influence of the British laws. Perhaps he was conscious of a motive that none but an inward monitor might detect. Lionel, tired at length with importuning without success, commissioned the husband of Agnes to place him in a situation, where, by industry, his future comfort was amply secured.

  Polwarth died quite lately. Notwithstanding his maimed limb, he contrived, by the assistance of his friend, to ascend the ladder of promotion, by regular gradations, nearly to its summit. At the close of his long life, he wrote Gen., Bart. and M. P. after his name. When England was threatened with the French invasion, the garrison he commanded was distinguished for being better provisioned than any other in the realm, and no doubt it would have made a resistance equal to its resources. In Parliament, where he sat for one of the Lincoln boroughs, he was chiefly distinguished for the patience with which he listened to the debates, and for the remarkable cordiality of the ‘ay’ that he pronounced on every vote for supplies. To the day of his death, he was the strenuous advocate for the virtues of a rich diet, in all cases of physical suffering, “especially,” as he would add, with an obstinacy that fed itself, “in instances of debility from febrile symptoms.”

  Within a year of their arrival, the uncle of Cecil died, having shortly before followed an only son to the grave. By this unlooked-for event, Lady Lincoln became the possessor of his large estates, as well as of an ancient Barony, that descended to the heirs general. From this time, until the eruption of the French revolution, Sir Lionel Lincoln, and Lady Cardonnell, as Cecil was now styled, lived together in sweetest concord, the gentle influence of her affection moulding and bending the feverish temperament of her husband, at will. The heir-loom of the family, that distempered feeling so often mentioned, was forgotten, in the even tenor of their happiness. When the heaviest pressure on the British constitution was apprehended, and it became the policy of the minister to enlist the wealth and talent of his nation in its support, by propping the existing administration, the rich Baronet received a peerage in his own person. Before the end of the century he was further advanced to a dormant Earldom, that had, in former ages, been one of the honours of an elder branch of his family.

  Of all the principal actors in the foregoing tale, not one is now living. Even the roses of Cecil and Agnes have long since ceased to bloom, and Death has gathered them, in peace and innocence, with all that had gone before. The historical facts of our legend are beginning to be obscured by time; and it is more than probable, that the prosperous and affluent English peer, who now enjoys the honours of the house of Lincoln, never knew the secret history of his family, while it sojourned in a remote province of the British empire.

  FINIS.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  CHRONOLOGY

  NOTE ON THE TEXTS

  NOTES

  About the Illustrations

  Numerous illustrated editions of The Spy have appeared in the last two centuries. Editions including etchings were issued in the Netherlands and France as early as 1827. In the United States, a number of artists created stand-alone depictions of scenes from the novel and published them in magazines and holiday gift annuals, but the first illustrated American edition, with drawings by Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822–1888), did not appear until 1859. In 1924, the first two editions with color illustrations appeared, and both were produced by American publishers: the Riverside Bookshelf edition from Houghton Mifflin, with paintings by Harold Mathews Brett (1880–1955), and a volume from Minton, Balch, & Company, with eight full-color plates by American illustrator C. LeRoy Baldridge (1889–1977). Although an undated reprint of the latter edition was issued by Garden City Publishing Co. (a division of Doubleday) during the following decade, Baldridge’s remarkable paintings have been otherwise unavailable to readers during the last century. This edition reproduces all eight plates by Baldridge, digitally restored from a copy of the 1924 Minton, Balch edition.

  Chronology

  1789

  Born James Cooper to William Cooper and Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper, both of Quaker ancestry, September 15 in Burlington, N.J., the twelfth of thirteen children. Four brothers (Richard, b. 1775; Isaac, b. 1781; William, b. 1785; and Samuel, b. 1787) and two sisters (Hannah, b. 1777, and Anne, b. 1784) survive childhood.

  1790–91

  Family moves to Lake Otsego, in upper New York State, where father has acquired a large tract of land formerly owned by Colonel George Croghan and has established the wilderness settlement to be known as Cooperstown.

  1791–1800

  Otsego is made a county, and Cooper’s father, a Federalist squire with firm convictions about the relationship between property and political power, begins term as first judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Otsego County, and is elected to Congress in 1795 and 1799. Cooper attends public school in Cooperstown (except for the winters of 1796–97 and 1798–99, when he is enrolled in school in Burlington, N.J.). Reported to have been venturesome, athletic, and an enthusiastic reader. Sister Hannah says her brothers are “very wild” and “show plainly that they have been bred in the Woods.” Hannah dies when she falls from a horse September 10, 1800. (Cooper later wrote that she was “a sort of second mother to me. From her I received many of my earliest lessons. . . . A lapse of forty years has not removed the pain with which I allude to the subject at all.”)

  1801–2

  Becomes a boarding student in the home of father’s friend, Reverend Thomas Ellison, rector of St. Peter’s
Church, Albany, N.Y., where he is drilled in Latin and forced to memorize long passages of Virgil. After Ellison dies in April 1802, goes to New Haven to be tutored for Yale College.

  1803

  Matriculates at Yale in February. (One of his professors, Benjamin Silliman, recalled twenty-five years later that the young Cooper was a “fine sparkling beautiful boy of alluring person and interesting manners.”) Career at Yale marred by inattention to studies and a series of pranks (family tradition says that he tied a donkey in a professor’s chair and stuffed a rag impregnated with gunpowder into the keyhole of another student’s door and set it afire). Dismissed from Yale in junior year, returns to Cooperstown, and continues education with tutor, the Reverend William Neill, who regards him as rather wayward, disinclined to study, and addicted to novel-reading.

  1806–7

  To prepare for a naval career, serves as sailor-before-the-mast on the merchant vessel Stirling. Sails October 1806 to the Isle of Wight, London, Spain, then London again before returning home September 1807. On this voyage meets Edward R. Myers, an apprentice seaman (whose biography he would write in 1843).

  1808–9

  Receives midshipman’s warrant January 1, 1808. Serves in the bomb ketch Vesuvius from March to July. Stationed at Fort Oswego, a frontier outpost on Lake Ontario, August 22, 1808, to October 1809 to apprehend smugglers during the 1808 embargo. In November, requests transfer to the sloop Wasp 18, anchored in New York, under Lieutenant James Lawrence, and is assigned task of recruiting sailors. Meets fellow recruiter William Branford Shubrick (later rear admiral), who becomes his most intimate friend. Judge Cooper dies December 22 of pneumonia (contracted after being struck from behind by a political opponent). Cooper willed $50,000 as his share of the legacy and a remainder interest with his brothers and sister in the $750,000 estate.

  1810

  Meets Susan Augusta De Lancey, eighteen, daughter of a prominent Westchester County family that had supported the Loyalist cause during the war. “I loved her like a man,” Cooper writes to his brother Richard, “and told her of it like a sailor.” Requests a year’s furlough to settle affairs following father’s death, and a year later resigns from the navy.

  1811–13

  On New Year’s Day, 1811, marries Susan De Lancey at her home in Mamaroneck, N.Y.; in April begins farming in a small way in New Rochelle. First child, Elizabeth, born September 27. Buys a farm, which he names Fenimore, on the western shore of Lake Otsego about a mile from Cooperstown, hoping to establish residence there permanently. Oldest brother, Richard, dies March 6, 1813. Second daughter, Susan Augusta, born April 17, 1813. Elizabeth dies July 13, 1813, soon after the move to Fenimore.

  1814

  Family lives in small frame house while permanent stone manor house is built. Cooper, a gentleman farmer and one of the founders of the county agricultural society, is active in the militia and the local Episcopal church.

  1815–17

  Two more daughters are born: Caroline Martha, June 26, 1815, and Anne Charlotte, May 14, 1817. Family moves back to Westchester County, autumn 1817, because Mrs. Cooper wishes to be near her family and also because Cooper faces increasing financial difficulties caused by the depression following the War of 1812, claims against estate, and personal debts.

  1818

  Builds home on De Lancey land, Scarsdale, N.Y., and names farm Angevine. Attempts to retrieve family fortune in speculative ventures. Becomes active in local Clintonian Republican politics. Two brothers die: William, to whom he was most attached, and Isaac, who had been most like his father. Mother, who has been living in the family residence, Otsego Hall, dies in December.

  1819

  With associate Charles Thomas Dering, invests in Sag Harbor whaler The Union, April 15 (Cooper owns the ship and two-thirds of the outfit); frequently sails on it. June 15, daughter Maria Frances is born. Appointed quartermaster, with rank of colonel, in New York State militia, July 1819. Last remaining brother, Samuel, dies.

  1820

  Writes first novel, Precaution, an imitation of a class of popular British novels, reportedly on challenge from wife. Its publication in November brings him into New York City literary and artistic circles. Begins to frequent the bookshop of Charles Wiley, and to write reviews for Wiley’s Literary and Scientific Repository, meeting friends—among them Fitz-Greene Halleck and William Dunlap—in a back room he later christens “The Den.”

  1821

  First son, Fenimore, born October 23. Second novel, The Spy, published December 22, is an immediate and resounding success. Translated into French and published in Paris.

  1822

  Quarrels with De Lancey family, and moves with wife and children from Westchester County to New York City, to be near publishers and to improve daughters’ opportunities for schooling. Founds the Bread and Cheese, a lunch club often referred to as “the Cooper Club,” whose informal membership would include merchants, painters, poets, journalists, and army and navy officers. Though his earnings are improved, Cooper’s financial difficulties are not fully resolved.

  1823

  Thirty-five hundred copies of The Pioneers sold on the morning of publication (February 1). English edition published by Murray is the first of Cooper’s works not to be pirated. Becomes interested in journalism; writes account of a horse race for the New York Patriot. April, becomes a member of the American Philosophical Society. Moves to 3 Beach Street, New York City, in May. In July, the house at Fenimore burns to the ground. Son Fenimore dies August 5. In autumn, household goods inventoried (but not sold) by sheriff of New York. Has “bilious attack” from which he continues to suffer for several years.

  1824

  Publishes first sea romance, The Pilot, in January, an attempt in part to show the nautical inaccuracies in Sir Walter Scott’s The Pirate. Paul Fenimore Cooper born February 5. Writes account of the celebration at Castle Garden in honor of General Lafayette for the New York American. Moves family in May to 345 Greenwich Street, New York City. In August, receives honorary M.A. from Columbia College. Accompanies four English noblemen (including Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby and future prime minister of England) on a sightseeing trip to Saratoga, Ballston, Lake George, Ticonderoga, and Lake Champlain. In a cavern in Glens Falls with Stanley, decides to write The Last of the Mohicans. (“I must place one of my old Indians here.”)

  1825

  Publishes Lionel Lincoln, the first of his commercial failures. Forms close friendship with Samuel F. B. Morse, artist (and future inventor of the telegraph).

  1826

  The Last of the Mohicans, published in February, receives enthusiastic press and becomes the best known of his novels on both sides of the Atlantic. Formally adds Fenimore to his name in fulfillment of pledge to his mother. Receives silver medal in May from the Corporation of the City of New York. Attends a farewell banquet in his honor given by the Bread and Cheese. In June, the family (including sixteen-year-old nephew William) sails for Europe for Cooper’s health, the children’s education, and, as Cooper confesses, “perhaps . . . a little pleasure concealed in the bottom of the cup”; European residence will extend to seven years. Carries with him unfinished manuscript of The Prairie and a nominal commission as U.S. Consul for Lyons, France. Following a brief visit to England, family settles in Paris, July 22, and after a few weeks in the Hotel Montmorency, moves to the Hotel Jumilhac, 12 Rue St. Maur, in the Faubourg St. Germain, where Cooper is courted by Parisian society. “The people,” he writes to a friend, “seem to think it marvelous that an American can write.” Visits Lafayette, who becomes his closest European friend, at his home, La Grange. November, Sir Walter Scott visits to enlist his help to change the American copyright laws and secure revenue from his American imprints.

  1827

  Publishes The Prairie (London, April; Philadelphia, May). Works on The Red Rover and, at Lafayette’s suggestion, begins work on Notions of the Am
ericans, intended to describe American institutions and the American character and to correct misconceptions about the United States current in England. Translations of works into French are paid for and published by Gosselin. June 1 to November 16, family lives in a thirty-room walled-in villa in St. Ouèn, on the Seine, four miles from Paris. Health improves in the country air. The Red Rover published November in Paris and London, and January in Philadelphia.

  1828–29

  February, visits London with wife, son Paul, and nephew William to finish Notions and see it through the press and is astonished by the warmth of his reception in literary and political, mainly Whig, circles. Finishes the book May 17. Returns to Paris June 9, via Holland and Belgium. July 28, family settles in Berne, Switzerland, where Cooper works on The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish and makes notes on his Swiss travels. Takes excursions to many parts of the country. Resigns as Consul of Lyons September 8, and leaves for Italy in October. Resides at Palazzo Ricasoli in Florence, November 25 to May 11, 1829. (Later writes of Italy: “. . . it is the only region of the earth that I truly love.”) Mingles widely in Florentine society and comes to know members of the Bonaparte family. Among American expatriates, is especially attracted to young American sculptor Horatio Greenough, from whom he commissions a work. (“. . . of all the arts that of statuary is perhaps the one we most want, since it is more openly and visibly connected with the taste of the people.”) February, sets out alone to Paris to arrange for the printing of The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, but after negotiations in Marseilles, the work is set and printed in Florence. Notions of the Americans published in England June 1828, and in America two months later. In July 1829, family travels from Leghorn to Naples in a chartered felucca, and in August settles in a chateau called “Tasso’s house” in Sorrento, where Cooper writes most of The Water-Witch. December, family settles in Rome for a stay of several months. Goes riding on the campagna. (“Rome is only to be seen at leisure, and I think, it is only to be seen well, on horseback.”)