{At the end of the century a limited scholarly edition (500 copies) appeared, edited by Walter Lee Brown, the first scholarly treatment of any Cooper work, noting variations between the original manuscript and the various published texts: "Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief" (Evanston, IL: The Golden-Booke Press, 1897). Another edition, unannotated and taken from the Graham's Magazine version, was printed half a century later as a Festschrift (farewell testimonial) for retiring Cooper scholar Gregory Lansing Paine of the University of North Carolina: "Autobiography of A Pocket-Handkerchief" (Chapel Hill: Privately printed, 1949). "Autobiography" was never included in published collections of James Fenimore Cooper's "Works," and this scarcity is an important reason for making it available to scholars everywhere through the Gutenberg Project.} {Because of the limitations imposed by the Gutenberg Project format, italics used by Cooper to indicate foreign words are ignored, as are accents; while italics Cooper used for emphasis are usually indicated by ALL CAPITALS. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are from the French. The spelling and punctuation of the Graham's Magazine periodical text have generally been followed, except that certain inconsistent contractions (e.g., "do n't" or "do'nt" for "don't") have been silently regularized.} {I have annotated the edition--identified by {curly brackets}--to translate most of the French words and expressions which Cooper frequently employs, to define occasional now-obsolete English words, and to identify historical names and other references. Cooper frequently alludes, in the beginning of the work, to events and persons involved in the French Revolution of 1830, which he had witnessed while living in Paris, and about which the beginning of the plot revolves.} AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF CHAPTER I. {Chapter numbers inserted from non-periodical editions of "Autobiography."} Certain moral philosophers, with a due disdain of the flimsy foundations of human pride, have shown that every man is equally descended from a million of ancestors, within a given number of generations; thereby demonstrating that no prince exists who does not participate in the blood of some beggar, or any beggar who does not share in the blood of princes. Although favored by a strictly vegetable descent myself, the laws of nature have not permitted me to escape from the influence of this common rule. The earliest accounts I possess of my progenitors represent them as a goodly growth of the Linum Usitatissimum, divided into a thousand cotemporaneous plants, singularly well conditioned, and remarkable for an equality that renders the production valuable. In this particular, then, I may be said to enjoy a precedency over the Bourbons, themselves, who now govern no less than four different states of Europe, and who have sat on thrones these thousand years.