The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper: Autograph Edition with Manuscript Page.

COOPER, James Fenimore.

Item Number: 2653

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1895-1900..

Octavo, 33 volumes. Bound in original 3/4 green morocco over marbled linen boards with silk ribbon markers. Top edge gilt and gilt titles and tooling to the spine. Hand-colored steel engraved frontispieces and additional engravings on Japon vellum. This edition consists of only 63 sets, of which this is number 49. A hand-written manuscript page from chapter 9 of Oak Openings is bound into The Spy. Included in the set are: Precaution ((1820), The Spy (1821), The Pioneers (1823), The Pilot (1823), Lionel Lincoln (1825), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prarie (1827), The Red Rover (1828), The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (1829), The Water-Witch (1830), The Bravo (1831), The Heidenmauer (1832), The Headsman (1833), The Monikins (1835), Homeward Bound (1838), Home as Found (1835), The Pathfinder (1840), Mercedes of Castile (1840), The Deerslayer (1841), The Two Admirals (1842), The Wing-and-Wing (1842), Wyandotte (1843), Afloat and Ashore (1844), Miles Wallingford (1844), Satanstoe (1845), The Chainbearer (1845), The Redskins (1846), The Crater (1847), Jack Tier (1848), The Oak Openings (1848), The Sea Lions (1849), The Ways of the Hour (1850) and Ned Myers, a biography (1843). The volumes are in fine condition. An exemplary set.

Although now renown for the baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York was the place where Cooper spent most of his life and it was established by and named for his father, United States Congressman, William Cooper. It was his life here, surrounded by Iroquois territory as well as his time in the US Navy that influenced a good deal of his work. Cooper did not begin his literary career until the age of 30, when his wife, also a writer, challenged his claim with a wager that he could produce a better novel than the one she had been reading. Although his first book, Precaution, published anonymously, was not a huge success, he, of course, went on to be one of the most popular 19th-century American authors, and his work was admired greatly throughout the world. Many consider him to be the first true American novelist.