A FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY JAMES FRANKLIN BEARD
Clark University
Gainesville, Florida
SCHOLARS' FACSIMILES & REPRINTS
1959
SCHOLARS' FACSIMILES & REPRINTS
118 N.W. 26th Street
Gainesville, Florida, U.S.A.
Harry R. Warfel, General Editor
REPRODUCED FROM A COPY IN
AND WITH THE PERMISSION OF
YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
L.C. Catalog Card Number: 59-6525
MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S.A.
LETTERPRESS BY J. N. ANZEL, INC.
PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY BY EDWARDS BROTHERS
BINDING BY UNIVERSAL-DIXIE BINDERY
On 1 February 1823 Charles Wiley published in New York The Pioneers, anew book by the author of The Spy; by noon he had sold 3,500 copies—arecord-making sale by the bookselling standards of the time. On 26 June,almost five months later, Wiley quietly offered, as we know from anotice in The Patriot, a New York newspaper, "Tales for Fifteen, orImagination and Heart, an original work in one volume, by Jane Morgan,price 75c." The actual author was the author of The Spy; and the twostories, "Imagination" and "Heart," were obviously imitations of Mrs.Amelia Opie's popular moral tales, published, as the paper cover noted,when The Spy was in its fourth edition, The Pioneers in its third,and The Pilot in press. The sale was so small that only four copiesare known to be extant. Why, one may ask, did James Cooper, who was in1823 a writer of national and international reputation, publish thisvolume of imitative stories for adolescent girls, even though hisidentity was carefully concealed?
According to Cooper's own account, Tales for Fifteen was written andgiven to Charles Wiley as a gesture of friendship to help the publisherout of financial difficulties. This explanation was echoed by thenovelist's daughter Susan in a letter reprinted from the CooperstownFreeman's Journal in The Critic on 12 October 1889. It is true thatWiley was having financial troubles in 1823, and Cooper undoubtedly gavehim the proceeds from Tales for Fifteen; but to suppose, as fullacceptance of this explanation requires, that Cooper reverted, evenmomentarily, to the repudiated literary models of his first bookPrecaution after the phenomenal success of The Spy would be to inferin him an almost total want of critical judgment and common sense. Thereal explanation, which Cooper might have been embarrassed to furnishand which the chronology of publication has obscured, lies in a hithertounsuspected phase of the curious story of Cooper's entrance toauthorship.
Cooper wrote Andrew Thompson Goodrich, his first publisher, on 31 May1820, that Precaution had been preceded by an experimental effort towrite a short moral tale. Mrs. Opie's Simple Tales (1807) and Talesof Real Life (1813) would have been among the obvious models. Findingthe tale "swell to a rather unwieldy size," Cooper explained, "Idestroy'd the manuscript and changed it to a novel." Precaution, whichwas completed on 12 June 1820, was probably written within a month; andbefore the novel had begun its tortuous way through the press, Coopercommenced the writing of The Spy. By 28 June he had completed "aboutsixty pages," presumably manuscript pages; and as the writing proceededand his enthusiasm for the new work mounted, his expectations for thesu