Description:

Cooper James 1789 - 1851 James Fenimore Cooper ALS written in wake of 1832 French/American "Finance Controversy"

Cream watermarked bifold stationery paper with integral holograph address leaf, each page measuring 4.875" x 7.875". Signed "J. Fenimore Cooper" with decorative looping underline at bottom right of page and entirely inscribed in American author's minute and crabbed script. Letter was written in Vevay, Switzerland on October 3, 1832 and addressed to "M. L'advocat, Librairie, rue de ... No. 2, Paris". In very good to fine condition, with minor discoloration at top, small tear resulting from unsealing of red wax disc, and isolated holes along paper folds. Address leaf is postmarked and stamped "Suisse par Pontarlier", indicating that the letter was sent from southwestern Switzerland by way of Alsace-Lorraine on its way to Paris.

Several interesting translated excerpts from the letter can be found below:

"I haven't yet written your little story but the subject is chosen. Our movements are so rapid that I haven't found the means to write a page".



"In effect, I am so infrequently abreast of news from your capital, where they write reviews against me to send them to America, that maybe you were wrong to admit me among your elite. I am not sure that I will do more wrong than good to you, but in any case, if you have the courage to receive me, I will be ready ... "

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), is widely recognized as America's first major novelist.

Initially, Cooper modeled his works directly on or in opposition to acknowledged British novelists like Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen. Yet as he gained in confidence, Cooper began to explore aspects of the newly forged American identity, including character types, settings, and situations. His "Leatherstocking Tales", a series of five novels that span the lifetime of their hero, Hawkeye, or Natty Bumppo, were released over a twenty-year period, between 1823 and 1841. In these works, Cooper examined the concepts of the frontier, progress, and the "noble savage". As a well-educated and well-traveled American, Cooper also represented his countrymen abroad.

In 1826, Cooper relocated his family to Europe and lived for a time in Paris. In this letter to an unknown correspondent, probably the proprietor of a book store that Cooper frequented in Paris, Cooper talks about a writing commission that he has planned but not executed ["Je n'ai pas encore écrit votre petit conte mais le sujet est choisi"].

In 1831, the expatriate Cooper was asked by his friend the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) to respond to articles published in the Revue Britannique by a former Napoleonic officer, now the prefect of the Paris police. Louis Sébastien Saulnier (1790-1835) argued that the American federal budget exceeded that of any European nation in a series of articles published in June, October, and November 1831. Cooper was not an economist, but he attempted to refute Saulnier's claims in a series of eight letters published in Le National between March and May 1832. This is the backdrop against which Cooper mentions his recent unpopularity in Paris. ["Je ne suis pas sur que je ne vous ferai plus de mal que de bien ... "] Cooper's last letter to Saulnier had been published nine months before he penned this letter, and he felt that public sentiment was still against him.

A very interesting letter exploring Cooper's involvement in the "Finance Controversy"!

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