Description
“HOW ALL HIS PAGES GLOW WITH CREATIVE FIRE!”: RARE FIRST ISSUE OF COOPER’S CLASSIC THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS IN CONTEMPORARY BOARDS, WITH AUTOGRAPH CHECK SIGNED BY COOPER
COOPER, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans; A Narrative of 1757. By the Author of “The Pioneers.” Philadelphia: H.C. Carey & I. Lea, 1826. Two volumes. Octavo, 19th-century half brown calf gilt, marbled boards. Housed in custom clamshell box.
Scarce first edition, first issue of Cooper’s classic tale in contemporary boards, with autograph check signed by Cooper laid in. One of the highlights of early American literature.
“This is the most famous of the Leatherstocking Tales, and the first in which the scout Natty Bumppo was made the symbol of all that was wise, heroic and romantic in the lives and characters of the white men who made the American wilderness their home… The novel glorified for many generations of readers, in England, France, Russia, and at home, some aspects of American life that were unique to our cultural history” (Grolier American 100 34). “The real triumph of Cooper is the variety of his invention, the power with which, isolating his few characters in the wilderness, he contrives to fill their existences, at least for the time being, with enough actions, desires, fears, victories, defeats, sentiments, thoughts to make the barren frontier seem a splendid stage” (DAB). Autograph check signed “J. Fenimore Cooper,” drawn on the Otsego County Bank of Cooperstown, New York on November 26th, 1838, is for $16.13. The recipient of the check was Joseph Baldwin. In the same year, James Fenimore Cooper published The Chronicles of Cooperstown, in which he discusses Joseph Baldwin and the Baldwin family, one of the original families to settle Cooperstown. First issue, with page 89 misnumbered 93, Chapter XVI numbered XIV in Volume I (page 243), and page vii misnumbered vi (while BAL states that “examination suggests that the folio was correctly set and the ‘i’ may have dropped out during the printing,” the sequence of states has not been established). State A of Volume II (sequence of states not determined) with “a Book” in the fifth line of the copyright notice. With blank leaf in Volume II and final blank in each volume. BAL 3833. 19th-century owner inscriptions on front endpapers.
Interior with very light scattered foxing, but generally quite clean. Only light rubbing to boards and to extremities of calf, with minor loss at spine ends. A most desirable and rare copy of this American literary landmark.
