The large volumes with their broad margins are handsome specimens of the excellent typographical work of the Bentleys. They are embellished with two illustrations in the text, and thirteen engraved plates. A frontispiece portrait of the author, after the painting by Kneller, was engraved by T. Bragg, and a smaller portrait used as a head-piece to the Life is signed _R. W. ſculp_. This last is a copy of one of Pepys's book-plates; it has the motto "Mens cujusque is est Quisque" above the oval frame, and "Sam. Pepys. Car. Et. Iac. Angl. Regib. A. Secretis Admiraliæ" in two lines below. Another book-plate used by the Secretary is copied on the title-page. Of the remaining portraits, one was engraved by John Thomson, while five were the work of R. Cooper, who also engraved the "View of the Mole at Tangier" and the "View of Mr. Pepys' Library." The other plates, including one showing facsimiles of Pepys's short- and long-hand; two of pedigrees, and a folded map, are signed "Sid^y. Hall, Bury Str^t. Bloomsb^y." Some copies of the book on fine paper, with beautiful impressions of the plates, are marked in red on the half-title page, "Presentation Copies." Quarto. COLLATION: _Two volumes._ Volume I: _1 l., xlii, 498, xlix pp._ Volume II: _2 ll., 348, vii, 311 pp. Seven portraits. Six plates._ JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851) 76. The Last | Of | The Mohicans; | A Narrative Of | 1757. | By The Author Of "The Pioneers." [Quotation] In Two Volumes. | Vol. I. | Philadelphia: | H. C. Carey & I. Lea--Chestnut-Street. | 1826. _The Pioneers_ was the first of _The Leather Stocking Tales_. It appeared in 1823, and was an immediate success; more than 3500 copies are said to have been sold before noon of the day of publication. This was reason enough for following the custom of the English novelists of putting on the title-page, not the name of the author, but the name of his first success. _The Last of the Mohicans_ appeared February 4, 1826, and was also a prodigious success. The surprising meagerness of bibliographical facts concerning Cooper's works is, Professor Lounsbury says in his life of the novelist, characteristic of a reticence and dislike of publicity which extended to all his dealings. "The size of the editions has never been given to the public. The sale of 'The Pioneers' on the morning of its publication has already been noticed, and there are contemporary newspaper statements to the effect that the first edition of 'The Red Rover' consisted of five thousand copies, and that this was exhausted in a few days. But it was only from incidental references of this kind, which can rarely be relied upon absolutely, that we, at this late day, are able to give any specific information whatever.